• 2/26/08 BACK ON THE BLOG
  
  Haven't updated this section of the blog in a minute. This is primarily because I have become so obsessed with writing travel blogs that I am pretty much mentally vacant by the time they are finally finished.
  
  Went to Peru in November and it was totally freakin' mind-blowing. Wrote an absurdly long blog about it, with photos that are so awesome my Mom swears they should be in National Geographic (!). Now Anne wants to move there so she can wander off in to the rainforest to learn how to read coca leaves in quechua while I work on my hippy tolerance.
  
  Went to venezuela over Christmas/New Years and got a whirlwind rockstar tour of the country from my two good friends Anabella and Cheo. Wrote and even longer blog with even cooler pictures. Ended up formatting it differently so the pics could load on separate pages. It is insanely long and detailed, but I've been getting wonderful responses from Venezuelans all over the globe. Some random guy even called me for travel tips. I'm the poor man's Samantha Brown!
  
  You can read all about these fabulous trips by clicking on the travel button on the left menu on this page. The Venezuela blog is also linked directly on the top navigation above.
  
  
  
• I HAVE FUCKED UP DREAMS. EXHIBIT A:
  
  So I'm living in a suburban house with Rosanne Barr, Uma Thurman, and Tommy Lee Jones in full "Two-Face" make-up, reprising his role from the Dick Tracy movie. WTF?! It's a lazy Saturday afternoon and we're all just sort of hanging around the house. Some random 2-story house in the suburbs.
  
  Uma is feeling a bit "snacky", so she pulls some ice cream out of the freezer, but it is too cold and hard to eat, so she puts it in the microwave. She leaves it there for like 15 minutes. The microwave overheats, causing a small radioactive explosion of some sort. After a small fire is extinguished, she apologizes to Rosanne for breaking the microwave. Tommy Lee Jones (as Two-Face, mind you) says nothing.
  
  Uma then asks Rosanne and I if we both think the ice cream is still safe to eat.
  Rosanne is like "I have no idea, what do you think Julian?"
  "I don't know. It's probably fine" I said "Just scrape off the top layer before you eat it"
  Uma looked pleased at this news and began to prepare the ice cream for immediately consumption.
  
  A few minutes later I began thinking "That is crazy. I don't know anything about radiation. My careless advice might kill Uma Thurman! I should consult my Dad immediately".
  
  So I call my Dad and tell him the story. Without hesitation he says "DO NOT EAT THAT ICE CREAM! GET IT OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW! BURY IT OUT IN THE WOODS AND NEVER GO NEAR THERE AGAIN!"
  
  "oh shit!" I thought.
  
  I ran downstairs to tell Uma. She had just finished the entire pint. Damn.
  I was like "Um.....nevermind".
  
  The end.
  
  
  
• THREE NEW MIX CDs HOT OFF THE PRESSES
  
  I went on a crazy mix CD bender last week and made three new CDs in one weekend.
  
  First was "TAKE TWO AND PASS", the title of which will make a lot of sense when you listen to it. I had three songs stuck in my head that desperately needed a home (i.e. a mix CD). One was the Sofa Surfers "Can I Get A Witness". My friend Melinda sent it to me out of the blue a few weeks ago. She said it was her new favorite song. It is fast becoming mine too. Another is a Radiohead song, "Talk Show Host", from the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack. A few weeks ago, Anne and I ended up back at my boy Ben's swank DUMBO townhouse at 4am on a Friday night, sitting by the fire smoking some California dreams while Ben played one of the coolest, most eclectic DJ sets I've ever heard, all from his ipod. Each song was played from start to finish for maximum appreciation - David Mancuso style (BTW, if you don't know who David Mancuso is, you betta axe somebody). Consequently, that Radiohead track was now stuck in my head too. Then, just the other day, my friend Jens IMs me at work, asking for music suggestions for his new reel. He sends me this crazy track by Disprupt, "Blow You To Bits", which has all these bugged out samples from the movie "Tron". He was looking for something similarly glitchy, but faster than this slow dub shit. I suggested the Chilean weirdo genius "Original Hamster" (who, BTW, has the single greatest DJ name of all time). Jens checked out his Myspace. Truth be told, I have no idea if Jens ever did find a track for his reel. Whatev. I had another song for my new mix CD, so it was all good.
  
  The mix has a real kitchen sink approach, with dubstep and reggae and R&B and new disco and jazz and electronica and Radiohead and whatever - all thrown in the pot. It was one of those Sunday mornings where I spent a few hours pulling records off the shelves at home, searching for some random gems to fill out the mix. I do this a few times a year, and I'm always reminded that there is a crazy amount of great music, that I already own, that I barely ever even listened to. Too much music. Not enough time. Definitely not enough time. Still, I think it came out pretty fucking cool. Good music to wind down too. Those who know, know.
  
  The other two mixes are some house tracks from the last six months that have been collecting in my apartment, in dire need of digital distribution.
  
  "SUNDAY MORNING" was made specifically for my Shelter family, who I have been promising CDs to for the past year or so. I have about twenty or so fellow dancers who I have been delivering CDs to on Sunday mornings for years. Last year, I took a six month hiatus from the club. When I finally showed up empty handed in January, I got mad disappointed looks. Hopefully this mix will remedy that.
  
  "WEDNESDAY NIGHT" is for the other family of clubheads on my CD delivery route - my peoples at Soulgasm, the Wednesday party that I guest at from time to time. DJ Brian Coxx holds it down every week, and brings in DJs of all types to fill out each night. The Soulgasm crowd is full of BBoying circle dancers. These kids are open to almost anything with a beat, so I tried to stretch out a bit, including some deep house, some tech house, some hip hop, some jazz, and some R and B.
  
  All of these mixes are posted in the music section of the site, under LATEST MIXES. Enjoy!
  
  
  
• MUSEUM GUARDS. DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL.
  
  Museum guards are, without a doubt, the rudest people on the earth. Their job basically gives them a license to stare. WTF?
  
  I don't know about you, but my Mom taught me that staring at people is rude, and she was right. Yet here are these guards, just staring people down all day. Again I ask, WTF?
  
  As soon as you walk in the room, they just stare right at you. And if you stare back, they get this "why the fuck are you staring at me?" look, as if there is something rude about staring at someone. It's a very ill-conceived profession in this regard, because it requires a violation of basic social graces, and that shit just ain't cool.
  
  So I propose we band together and give these beady-eyed, furrowed-brow bastards a taste of their own medicine. Next time you go to a museum, don't even look at the art. Just walk right in to the gallery and stand near the doorway, staring directly at the guard. We'll see how they like it. Bastards!
  
  P.S. If you get thrown out, don't call me.
  
  
  
• I HAVE FUCKED UP DREAMS. EXHIBIT B:
  
  So I'm staying in a mountain cabin with my good friend Jesse Vendley. Ryan Oneal is our host. Apparently this is his summer place of some sort. Looks like the Rocky Mountains.
  
  Ryan is sleeping very late. Like, until 5 or something, and Jesse and I keep wondering who the hell is gonna make dinner, cuz it sure as hell isn't gonna be us. Ryan eventually crawls out of bed and makes some kind of dinner. I think it was a stew of sorts. One would think we would have smelled a stew 'stewing' all day, but alas, we were clueless. maybe he was sleeping so late cuz he had been up all night making the stew. Who can say?
  
  We sit down to eat dinner. At some point I realize something rather horrific has transpired inside my pants. As in, I had unknowingly relieved myself in the most thorough of fashions (both #1 & #2, right in my pants. I was really freaked out. I got up and non-chalantly shuffled off the bathroom to review that damage.
  
  I was incredibly embarrassed and quit alarmed that it had come to this. I was a grown man crapping my pants. Not a good sign.
  
  I cleaned up best as I could, threw my soiled underwear out of the bathroom window in to the woods (what else could I do, really?), and made my way back towards the dinner table.
  
  I passed Jesse in the hallway and was compelled to confess my fecal indiscretion.
  "Don't worry man" Jesse said "I just did the exact same thing"
  "You're kidding me?" I gasped
  "Happens all the time. No big deal"
  
  The end.
  
  I sent Jesse a text message the next day. This was right before Christmas.
  
  ME: had a dream we were staying at Ryan Oneal's house in the mountains. I crapped my pants, but then so did you , so I didn't feel so bad. Merry Crappy Christmas.
  
  JESSE: who's that?
  (I forgot he just got a new phone. no caller ID yet)
  
  ME: as if you don't know
  
  JESSE: Ur not coming up on my caller ID
  
  ME: oh well
  
  JESSE: just looked you up on my old phone list. U were starting to freak me out, what, with the scatological dreams of me and whatnot. Merry crappy Christmas to you too, homeboi
  
  JESSE: pretty interesting dream. I'm guessing the mountain is the task before you, and judging by my role in the dream - and the nature of the symbol itself - the crap in your pants probably represents fatherhood (Jesse disappeared off the face of the earth 4 years ago when he had kids. True story. It was like Jimmy Hoffa). Not sure what Ryan Oneal is all about tho...
  
  ME: How insightful. I have been freaking out about imminent fatherhood. The first Ryan Oneal thing that comes to mind is the movie PAPER MOON, where he is a single father to Tatum Oneal, who is coincidentally the ex-wife of John McEnroe, who is coincidentally now married to Patty Smythe, who is coincidentally the ex-wife of Richard Hell, who, coincidentally, I had dinner with last night. Hmmm.
  
  Moral of the story: I am so scared of having kids I wanna poop my pants.
  
  
  
• I AM SO ALMOST FAMOUS
  
  My friend Eva Orner won the best documentary Academy Award at The Oscars on Sunday for her documentary film, "Taxi To The Darkside". Truth be told, I haven't seen her in a minute. She was in the beach house with us two summers ago. My friends Serge and Melinda give me updates from time to time. When they told me her film was short-listed to win best doc, I was very excited. A few weeks later, at a random dinner full of strangers at a Bulgarian restaurant in Queens, I coincidentally sat next to and struck up a conversation with the woman who edited the film. When the film actually WON on Sunday, I was completely thrilled for both of them. Congratulations!! I strongly suggest you go see this movie.
  
  The best part: now I am only one degree away from my dream date with Tom Hanks!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 10/26/07 - SEX AND FOOD AND ROCK AND ROLL
  
  
  If you ask me, there are three essential reasons to live in New York City: MUSIC, FOOD, and SEX. I have spent the last 20 years in pursuit of those three virtues with, if I may be so bold, a modicum of success in all three categories. To live here is to embrace life's simple pleasures and indulge yourself with every ounce of energy you have until it just doesn't mean anything anymore. Then you either OD or you leave town before you go completely fucking broke and or nuts.
  
  Sometimes this takes 5 years. Sometimes it takes a lifetime. Sometimes you question why you're still here, not growing up, not starting a family, not saving for retirement. Then the best steak tar tar of your life appears at the table and your taste buds have an orgasm and, like any good orgasm, you forget what you were just contemplating. And so it goes.
  
  My friends from various parts of the country and the world visit from time to time, and they show me pictures of their kids and their back yards and their new station wagon, and I am truly happy for them, as they have wonderful families and fulfilled lives, and had I not been drawn to this den of sin, I too would surely be repping the suburbs to the fullest. But we New Yorkers don't have kids. We don't have back yards. We don't even have driver's licenses half the time. At least not most of my friends. We are freaks. We never grew up. But, without a doubt, we are LIVING. Some days, it just feels really fucking good. This past Saturday was just such a day.
  
  Two months ago, my good friend Melinda was kind enough to get Anne and I tickets to a concert. She simply sent us an Email, along with 4 other people, that said "I got us all tickets to Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsytem at Randall's Island in October and you're all going". It was more of an edict than an invitation. Fair enough. When somebody as cool as Melinda tells me I will enjoy something, especially music, I invariably do. She has impeccable taste and has been turning me on to music all summer at the beach, so much so that I have begun to question the depth of my own record collection, but that is another story and too complex to get in to here. Anywayz, we were thrilled to go.
  
  Randall's Island is a 480 acre island across from Spanish Harlem, surrounded by the East River on the west, the Hell Gate on the East, and the Bronx Kill on the north. Sounds like a refuge for the damned I guess, but it's actually just a great venue for outdoor concerts and sporting events. Go figure. I had never been, so the prospect of taking a ferry to an island made the whole trip that much more of an adventure.
  
  I was not particularly fond of any of the bands on the bill prior to the show. LCD Soundsystem has always sounded good to me, but I only own a few of their singles. I know that they are some white boys playing no-wavey, techy, live drums club music, which is cute, but I have always gone to the source for dance music, and by the source, I mean black folks. But that doesn't stop me from appreciating people who make good music. Arcade Fire I had heard only a few times, mostly on the web. All I did know is that I've always found them impossible to describe, which seemed to mean that they were, in fact, doing something new. And truly "new" in music is hard to come by IMO, so I was eager to really find out what the shit was all about.
  
  The venue was massive. Maybe four football fields deep and one football field wide. Beer and pretzel vendors lines the perimeter. And for some reason they also sold Colombian arepas, which lead me to suspect they must hold soccer games there for Latinos. Not sure.
  
  The weather was perfect. The sun was setting as we arrived and the temperature was like 70 or something, with a slight breeze. One of those waning days of NY summer that makes you sigh and try to soak it all in before the cold black snow arrives.
  
  SEX - imaginary or real, it doesn't suck
  
  The crowd was white and young and varied. Hipsters and frat boys and everything in between. Lots of skinny jeans and big sunglasses. A fair amount of ecstasy grins and port-o-let coke bumps. The women looked smoking hot, as almost all women seem to look in New York, and the guys looked like fucking dorks who I wanted to punch. But who cares? The women looked great. New York is just crawling with beautiful women. To put this in perspective, allow me to relate an embarrassingly shallow personal hobby of mine: Sometimes when I'm in a cab, I play this game to pass the time where I scan the sidewalk whizzing by, and I count how many women I would willingly sleep with (were I still single, ahem) on any given block in any part of the city at any fucking time, day or night. I swear to God, it is never less than three per city block. Often closer to six or seven, especially during the day. I'm telling you, women in NY are not playing. Now try that shit in any other city in America. You'll be lucky to find 3 attractive people within a five square mile radius in some of this nations chud-filled metropoliseez. One more reason to move to NYC if you haven't already done so. And yes, men are pigs, and I am no exception, but you knew this.
  
  ROCK n ROLL
  
  We arrived just before Blonde Redhead took the stage. They played moody eclectic rock that reminded me a bit of Radiohead, but more dancy. They were only a three-piece, and I kept looking up on stage wondering where the bass-player was. I guess they were using a lot of pre-recorded sequences, which is fine I guess, but would it kill them to hire a fucking bass player for their tour? I keeps it real.
  
  LCD Soundsytem were next and they fucking KICKED ASS. White boys or not, they played house music with a live band better than anyone I have ever heard. They have a very distinct stripped down sound, where they just loop a few key elements and let that shit run. The singer is basically just some random frat-lookin' dude who can kinda sing and kinda has stage presence, but it works in that ESG kind of way. He attempted to speak to the crowd on several occasions, but was clearly so fucked up that he would slur his words and lose his train of thought in mid-sentence, to great amusement. But like I said, they sounded great. And for some reason, though I have only heard their new album a few times, almost all of the songs seemed really familiar and I even knew the words to some of them, which was weird. I finally found the double-album vinyl a few days after the show and now I put it on "All my friends" anytime I need to get dressed in a hurry.
  
  Arcade Fire wrapped up the day with an inspiring performance. They have such a distinct sound that's so hard to put your finger on. Kind of like all the things about The Dream Academy and Bruce Hornsby and U2 and The Alarm that don't suck. I don't know what the fuck that even means, to be honest. There's also a bit of Irish folk music somewhere in there ala Black47. But that's what I like about them - nobody else really sounds like this. There songs seemed long and rather complex, yet they were full of sing-along moments. But the sing-alongs didn't sound poppy and contrived like U2. Nothing about them sounded remotely like pop music to me, and I'm always amazed to see bands with some complexity in their music draw such a huge crowd. More than anything Arcade Fire is just so god damned EPIC. Every song builds and builds and by the end, you're both thrilled and exhausted. The crowd ate it up, and I don't think anyone left the show without being impressed. I know I was.
  
  One thing that struck me while listening to them is just how devoid of funk they are. There are almost no traces of black music anywhere. Not that there should be or needs to be, mind you, but it is noticeable to somebody like me who has spent the last 20 years fully submerged in the ever-reaching family tree of James Brown. Somebody sent me a recent New Yorker article about the whitening of Indie rock music, and, funnily enough, Arcade Fire was used as the lead example. The article tends to hit and miss IMO, but you may find it an interesting read.
  
  New Yorker article CLICK ME
  After the show we joined the long exodus of concertgoers who were making their way slowly back to Manhattan via the narrow pedestrian walkway on the Triborough Bridge, the entrance of which recalled to mind the scene in War of the Worlds when Tom Cruise is trying to get on that ferry and it's a total clusterfuck. Nevertheless, it was a fine evening for a stroll and the line for the ferry looked too damn long. I had never walked over the bridge in my 20 years in New York, so it just added to the adventure. As we approached land on the Manhattan side, about 45 minutes later, it was clear that this particular bridge doubled as an outdoor flophouse for a wide variety of junkies and random winos fond of soiling themselves and their immediate surroundings. We spilled out on to 125th st. In Harlem around midnight. An armada of 3000 white hipsters strolling down One-Two-Five at midnight on a Saturday was a sight to behold. Bewildered drivers kept slowing down to literally ask "yo yo...what's with all the white people??" Anne and I, fearing a repeat clusterfuck at the subway entrance, made a dash for the first available gypsy cab and began our long journey back to Brooklyn. The plan was a post-show, 1am dinner at Blue Ribbon Sushi in lower Park Slope. Ben, Patricia, and two mysterious Korean girls who kept passing me joints during the concert had driven there straight from the gig and secured a table, some appetizers, and a bottle of cold sake.
  
  FOOD
  
  I sat down at the table, took an amazing bite of shiso leaf tempura, and took a long-anticpated gulp of Sopporo. I was in heaven. This particular Saturday had already delivered not only a sunset boat ride on the East River, but a fantastic fucking live show to boot. And now, to top it off, I was about to eat a meal at one of New York's greatest sushi restaurants. This was indeed one of those moments when I was overtaken with a love for New York and all it has to offer. We compared favorite moments from the various bands over plate after plate of sashimi and tempura and all manner of Blue Ribbon's bounty. The beer tasted extra crisp and for a day at least, every visible particle of the know universe just had a rosy glow that reassured me that life was indeed "good" after all.
  
  
• NO MORE TEQUILA. LAST FERRY IS 8:20. TIME TO GO HOME
  
  Summer in Fire Island. Not much to say other than it totally fucking rules and keeps me sane (despite the fact that Gabriel has informed me the world is ending and I am on a one-way ticket to Hell - Confused? See "the world is going to end" blog entry below).
  
  This was my 6th summer in Davis Park, a small working class enclave located across the bay from Patchogue, Long Island, about 2 hours by train from NYC. It's the last town before the nature preserve that encompasses the Eastern half of the island, thus we are somewhat isolated from the privileged and/or flamingly gay towns that occupy the rest. Residents of Davis Park are almost exclusively Irish & Italian, with a lot of cops and firemen and their multi-generational families. Did I mention it's chock full of jailbait? Shit is ridiculous.
  
  There is absolutely nothing to do except enjoy life. No internet. Spotty cellphone coverage. No TV. No clubs. One shitty bar and one even shittier restaurant. So we gather in groups of 8 or so each weekend and just keep to ourselves. A lot of grilled meat, wine, ice cream, Harper's, The New Yorker, InStyle, new and old fiction novels, and the Sunday Times. I got through half of The Brothers Karamozov but my attention drifted to more pressing issues like Tequila. We Lay around on the beach or sit around on the deck and eat, drink, and be merry. Those three things are not over-rated in any way shape or form, and they make the NY summer whip by in a margarita-soaked, sun-drenched haze. If you're crafty you manage to get some weekday time in as well, when things are very quiet, and that makes it all worth it.
  
  Here are some random shots from the summer, most of them from the beach.
  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  
• I THINK I LOVE MY WIFE
  
  
  
  
• HIP HOP IS DEAD. LONG LIVE HIP HOP
  
  As much as I hate to say this, I can no longer turn a blind eye. Hip Hop sucks. It really REALLY sucks. It has been sucking for a long time. We all know that. I've been in denial for almost a decade now, but I've had alls I can stands I can't stands no more.
  
  Time was, we always had a few redeeming tracks here and there that I could point to with confidence and swiftly shut down the haters with the the tried and true mantra of we, the believers: "it's out there...yo just gotta dig". And that was true. It really was. But those days are truly gone, my friends. Long gone.
  
  I've been putting this off for years. I really have. I kept DJing. I kept making mixtapes. I kept buying records that I knew were just plain SHIT. Records that would disappear in 3 weeks. Records that should have never been made by no-skill-having dumbfucks who should have never been signed in the first place.
  
  Yet, there was always something to give me hope. Some joint would come out that would help me push the demons back under the bed, if just for one more gig.
  
  But these days? Good God. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED? How did our standards get SO fucking low? How and when did we stop caring if an MC had skillz? I mean, that was the whole point of this shit - remember? S-K-I-DOUBLE-L to the mother fucking Z. Maybe I'm just old, and god knows I am fucking old, but today's top 10 rappers couldn't get a fucking record deal to save their life 20 years ago. Lil Wayne is the best rapper alive? Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit. 50 Cent? Are you fucking kidding me? He sounds like Mase meets Puffy on a bad day, after he took some Valium. Speaking of Puffy...that mother fucker is performing in stadiums like he's mother fucking Phil Collins? The whole Hip Hop world used to LAUGH when Puffy picked up the mic. Now he's on the #1 remix like he can rhyme or something. WHAT THE FUCK? "This is why I'm Hot" is the best lyrics NYC has to offer? Really? Rick Ross rhymes "Atlantic" with "Atlantic" and nobody throws a fucking bottle at his face? WHAT THE FUCK?
  
  I mean, there's always been sucky rappers, don't get me wrong. But they were the exception, not the rule. We tolerated them because nobody took them seriously, and we still had real stars repping real Hip Hop. But now? Sheeeeeeeeeit.
  
  Without the most basic of standards, we'll swallow anything. Which brings me to the song that broke the camels back. This is it folks, the final nail in Hip Hop's coffin. It can get no lower than this. It really can't.
  
  SOULJAH BOY - YAAA BITCH --- click this link to hear what the death knell of Hip Hop sounds like
  And this is a song from one of the biggest rap stars on the planet right now. A headlining act making money all over the place. It's amusing in a sad way, I'll give you that. But I'm, not laughing with it, I'm laughing AT it. And THIS is what we are calling HIp Hop? Fuck that noise. These no-skill-having idiots and their tone-deaf fans can fucking have it. It's a wrap.
  
  
• THE WORLD IS GOING TO END. FRANK SAID SO
  
   
  
  My brain is fucked. I really don't know how this happened, or why, but for as long as I can remember, I have had intensely vivid dreams, most of which I can remember in great detail for at least 30 minutes after I wake up, if not indefinitely. A good percentage of these dreams are nightmares bordering on the ultra-violent. Others are just ominous moody warnings about violence to come. Some, of course, are just complete random gibberish that aren't frightening in the least. I almost never have good sex dreams either.
  
  There are recurring classic themes of frustration and powerlessness, usually manifested in either all of my teeth falling out, or a physical altercation with some fearsome foe, where I am trying to beat the shit out of somebody yet my blows seem to do nothing at all. I have the latter one quite often. Always a different person, always a different scenario, but always the same result. They win, I lose. Thankfully, I suppose, the embarrassingly simple symbolism these nocturnal brawls represent isn't too difficult to decipher. At least not on the surface. The thing is, though, I have never felt particularly overwhelmed by helplessness, and in truth I'm really quite a mild-mannered guy. So... WTF?
  
  Part of me thinks my subconscious has become super violent in order to balance the relative calm and considered reason of my waking life. Part of me also wonders if all of the violence in the thousands of movies I watch hasn't sunk in and poisoned my brain. I'll never forget having my Father walk in on my sister and I watching Reservoir Dogs after Christmas dinner one night. He walked in to the room right as Mr. Blonde is slicing off the cop's ear with a straight razor. Merry fucking Christmas. He seemed really mad and confused. He looked at us like we were freaks and asked "why the hell would you want that image in your brain?" We looked at him and kind of giggled, and he stormed out of the room. It was a good question, and one I've never been able to answer.
  
  The reason that I'm bringing all of this up is lately my dreams have gotten particularly dark, and the simple translation is that either the world is going to end any minute now, or, at the very least, I myself am going to Hell sooner than later. This started a couple of months ago, when I had two vivid dreams back to back.
  
  In the first dream, Anne comes home from work and informs me that somebody mailed her an audio tape, followed up by an anonymous phone call telling her that the tape contains proof that I am cheating on her. She is holding a large square manila envelope with no return address and she's fucking pissed. I tell her to go ahead and play the tape, because I have nothing whatsoever to hide, and somebody is just fucking with us. She clearly doesn't believe me. She opens the envelope and pulls out what is actually not a tape, but a gate-fold LP that looks conspicuously like Led Zeppelin IV, aka "Zoso". Not exactly the same, mind you, but when she unfolds the album there are all these weird hand-drawn symbols that look like they were drawn by the same illustrator that drew the inside cover of Led Zeppelin IV - you know, that tall, old, wizard dude holding a lamp, gazing down at us mortals from the top of some misty mountain. And, if you recall, this LP also contained four symbols, which stoned high school kids are still pondering to this day. This dream LP didn't have any tall, old, wizard dude, but there were a ton of weird cryptic symbols hand drawn in black and white.
  
  I tell her to put the album on and we'll see who's lying here. As luck would have it, for some reason, there was a brand new Technics 1200 turntable sitting right in the middle of my bed. So we both got on the bed and put the vinyl on to listen to this supposed proof of my infidelity.
  
  But there was no voice on the LP, at least not one speaking English. The recording was actually just this collage of growls and screams and other horrifying noises, with one totally fucking evil voice speaking some long incantation in Aramaic on top of it all. We played the LP almost the whole way through. Anne looked confused, as she doesn't speak Aramaic and there seemed to be nothing at all about me getting some strange on the side. All of a sudden it hit me. HOLY SHIT! This was a recording with one solitary and nefarious purpose: it was the reading of a spell, meant to conjure Satan, and by playing it aloud, we had done just that. OOPS! Then the lights went out. I said "WE'RE FUCKED!". Then I woke up.
  
  I sat up in bed for a minute. "Man, I've seen too many fucking Satan movies" I thought to myself. Come to think of it, this dream was kind of EVIL DEAD 2 (the recording conjuring Satan) meets Michael Hanneke's CACHE (the anonymous package revealing your secrets) - two very great and very fucked up movies in their own way. WTF? I went back to sleep.
  
  The second dream was much more fantastic and didn't take place on earth. It was sort of inside some kind of abstract video game world. I don't even play video games anymore, mind you, but it reminded me of the demo version of Super Mario Brothers Galaxy that was all over the web last year. This game isn't even out yet, I don't think, but Nintendo finally got out of that 2D running and jumping shit and has advanced to this 3D universe, where Super Mario can literally fly through the universe, jumping from planet to planet. Like I said, I don't even play games, and I've always hated super Mario Brothers, but this looks truly awesome.
  
  Anyway, in my dream, I was riding a horse with a bunch of hot chicks in semi-transparent flowing clothes. Embarrassingly gay and cliche, but whatever. We were riding horses around some Versailles-looking garden, which was on a large plane of earth that was literally floating in space. Not space, really, as there were no stars. Just a gigantic limitless black void. There were several other planes floating above and below, and at will you could leap out of the garden and jump thousands of feet up or down to another plane. These jumps were huge. Like those huge mile-long jumps only The Hulk can make. Each plane contained a different cool-looking environment. One was a forest. One was mostly a lake. One had these big ruins of some industrial building.
  
  So I'm running around with this herd of babes on horses and were exploring all of these magical floating planes, jumping from one to the next and having a grand old time. What's not to like, right? We finally arrived back at the Versailles garden plane, but then things got weird.
  
  All of a sudden, everyone's mood changed. All of the girls looked really scared. One chick looks dead at me. She is crying and terrified. She says "It's begun". I start asking everybody what the fuck is going on, but nobody will tell me. It''s clear that there is something EVIL present, and in some way or another, the end is at hand. The women, all crying and screaming, get off their horses and scatter in all directions, looking for a place to hide. I don't know what to do, but I figure I'll be safe if I can just get back to that other floating plane below, the one with the abandoned industrial building. I gallop towards the edge and leap off. As I clear the edge, I look down in horror as I see all of the other planes disappearing in to thin air, one by one. Fuck. Just as I am about to land on the industrial building, it disappears, along with my horse and everything else other than the garden above.I look up in horror as I plummet helplessly downward in to the black void. I'm falling and falling and the light of the garden is getting smaller and smaller. I am engulfed in sheer terror. Just as the light disappears, and I know I am dead, I wake up screaming "DARKNESS!!!!"
  
  I am sweating and shaking. Lucky for me, Anne sleeps like a rock and me screaming "DARKNESS!!!" in the middle of the night is not enough to wake her up from her happy giggle-land. After that, I really didn't want to go back to sleep.
  
  In retrospect, this dream was kind of SUPER MARIO BROTHERS GALAXY (jumping through space) meets TIME BANDITS (the floating planes in that black void) meets ZARDOZ (the garden utopia filled with scantily clad women) meets PARADISE LOST (permanent exile from the garden from Milton and that other famous book) meets EVENT HORIZON (the scariest moment ever where that guy is crawling around in those computer-panel access-tunnel, and the lights go out, then the lights come back on and his dead wife is sitting there with solid black eyes and she grabs his arm and calmly and forbiddingly says "FOREVER!"). Yes, movies have definitely fucked my brain.
  
  As you can see, there is a distinct recurring theme of my own death and the end of the world. Not just from these two dreams, but from all of the others too. In the last two weeks I've had two different dreams where I personally spoke with the Archangel Gabriel. He keeps telling me that the world is going to end. In a way, I guess, he's kind of like Frank the metal-head rabbit from DONNIE DARKO, but way cooler. Gabriel, as you probably know, is classically depicted as the messenger of God. In the Talmud, among other things, he is the voice of the burning bush, the guy that tells Noah to gather all those freakin' animals, and the guy who waits until the very last second to tell Abraham not to kill his son Isaac (probably the most compelling story in the entire Bible IMO). In Paradise Lost he is an Armor-plated bad-ass, leading the army that defends heaven from Satan. This is how he usually appears in my dreams. In full armor with wings and the whole shebang, telling me to get ready to die and spend eternity in Hell. Great news, huh? And I don't even believe in God, much less Satan. Oh well. Consider yourself warned.
  
  
• WEIRD STUFF I DO WHEN I'M BORED
  
  I was on a conference call recently with the production company that makes this TV show on A and E called "The First 48". I am currently part of a team developing some interstitial content for the network based on the detectives in the show. Anyway, we got to talking about good cops and bad cops and right before we hung up the call somebody mentioned the movie BAD LIEUTENANT. Someone in the room hadn't seen the movie, and we got to talking about it's brutal genius or ultimate suckiness, give or take. Almost immediately, my boy Kyle Baron-Cohen, in his usual stream-of-consciousness mode, blurts out "color me badd lieutenant!". We looked at each other in mutual "Eureka!" amazement. The rest is history.
  
  "Color Me Badd Lieutenant" CLICK ME
  
• A TSHIRT I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO OWN
  
  I have no idea who this kid is, but this T shirt is on some next level mensa type shit
  
  
  
  
• WE'RE GETTIN' THE OLD BAND BACK TOGETHER
  
  Way back in March I had the great fortune of once again getting to spin some records with my old DJ partner Jules Gayton. He was in town to do a party for the launch of some skater shoe for Vans, and he asked myself and Dante Ross if we'd like to spin with him.
  
  Dante Ross is a true legend of the NY Hip Hop scene. He began as an intern in the very early days of Def Jam and clawed his way up in the record industry as a successful producer (SD50) and brilliant A&R guy. He went on to form his own record labels and continues to develop artists of all kinds. He is the Dante in De La Soul's legendary "Dante is a scrub" skit from their very first album. Betta axe somebody. If nothing else, he should be given a medal just for discovering BUSTA RHYMES. I mean seriously, that's like finding the one and only living leprechaun and saying "you know what? I COULD keep you all to myself, but fuck that, the world needs leprechauns" and unleashing him on the planet. He is an infamous brawler, and we may never have even met had we not almost come to blows with each other at Soul Kitchen many moons ago.
  
  The party was a gas and a few old friends stopped by to pay their respects to us old heads. Here are a few pics.
  
  Oh, BTW, Jules was kind enough to give me a dope CD of some rare disco, and I put a bunch of them on a recent mix, entitled "15 reasons to dance", which is in the mixes section of this site.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I AM EASILY AMUSED. I REALLY AM
  
  
  
  
• TOO BAD SHE WON'T LIVE
  
  
  
  They just recently released the "final cut" of BLADERUNNER, and seeing it again on the biggest screen in the city was such a delight I went twice.
  
  This latest incarnation is really just for us nerds. There are no substantial extra scenes, or definitive clues which solve the "is Deckard a replicant" debate. Just little nerdy details like the serial number of the snake-scale matches the one the fish lady reads aloud, and the number of replicants we encounter in the film matches the number Deckard's boss describes in their initial conversation. The kind of thing people like me have been arguing about over beers and on message boards for the last 25 years. The stupid Shining B-roll footage from the end credits of the original theatrical release are gone, as you would expect, as is the voiceover. Edward James Olmos gets a bit more screen time, but not much more character development.
  
  They also did a lot of digital restoration, cleaning up all of the mattes around the space-ships and digitally compositing Joanna Cassidy's face over the body double stuntwoman who crashes through the windows. That scene alone is worth the price of admission. The way the neon is reflecting off of all of these layers of windows, plus the reflections in her plastic see-thru raincoat, plus the defocused foreground and background lights, plus the lens reflections...it all just gives you endless amounts of detail to study.
  
  Visually, the entire film is a wonder to behold. The outdoor shots look breathtakingly beautiful, and seeing it twice allowed me to really wander around each frame and catch little stylizations of buildings and dramatic forced perspective matte paintings I had heretofore ignored. The cinematographer's use of light and reflection throughout the film is just jaw-dropping. I feel like you could watch the whole movie with all of the dialogue removed and still enjoy it just as much as a piece of visual art.
  
  The crowd on the closing night was especially excited, cheering loudly for every name in the credits (Vangelis most of all!). Somebody in the front row raised a neon umbrella, a souvenir from the film that has probably been collecting dust in this guy's closet for 25 years.
  
  No matter what mediocrity Ridley Scott may produce on the downward slope of his later years, he can still hold up this film and say with all sincerity few director's have ever made anything remotely as cool as Bladerunner. The 5-disc box set gets released next month, and I will be the first in line to get it.
  
  You can peep it here CLICK ME
  
• CONEY ISLAND (robot) BABY
  
  
  
  Daft Punk at Coney Island. Talk about mind blowing. Hands down the most impressive thing I've ever seen two DJs do in my life. Not only does their music sound about 1000 times more kick ass live, but they have the most insane light show you will ever see. Despite it being relatively low tech and all 80s realness, it keeps changing up with every song, and it was simply mesmerizing. Did I mention they are DJing in a 20 foot video pyramid spaceship thing, with a 200 foot long 60 foot high LED curtain behind them screaming out lyrivs and creating black holes and sunsets and fucking explosions and galaxies and HOLY SHIT did their robot suits just turn in to TRON robot suits?!?!?!
  
  These guys really understand what to do with club music in a live setting. Constantly remixing shit on the fly. Bringing back acapellas and little riffs from songs. Just WORKING that shit, for two hours. Talk about a party. See these dudes live. Shit is ridiculous.
  
  This Youtube link below might give you an inkling of how fun this was:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK3cLV44LPg
  
• I'M SO GLAD WE SHARED THIS TIME TOGETHER
  
  
  
  That's about it for this quarter's blog-worthy musings. I've was gonna write about the WHITE STRIPES show at MSG and tell some old Brooklyn Hip Hop war stories but dag nabbit I just haven't gotten around to it. In 4 days I leave for 2 weeks in Peru, where I am going to do be doing yoga twice a day, sleeping in a Tipi at the top of the Andes, losing my mind on ayuhuasca amidst the ruins of Machu Pichu, and, as always, repping BK to the fullest. Full report and hopefully a dutifully detailed journal when I get back.
  
  
  
  
• 4/2/07 - SATURDAY NIGHT IN THE LIFE OF AN OLD DJ
  
  
  10:30pm 2 boxes and 1 bag fully loaded. Thought about taking Kwame and Bahamadia,but decided to leave em. Was gonna take the Live Donny Hathaway, but then remembered I had already packed the greatest hits LP, which has the live version of "The Ghetto" that I fucking love. Packing for two parties. Two crowds. limited space. Decisions decisions. Visible: Schooly D "Saturday Night" 12". Vicki Sue Robinson. Maybe that's in the wrong jacket.
  
  Car service arrives outside my building. I live in a converted loft building on Tillary and Flatbush. Downtown Brooklyn. No man's land, really. Nestled between the police station, the firehouse, Fort Greene Projects, and the most fucked up deli on planet earth. Wife and I call it "the belligerent deli", cuz there is always mad drama going on in there. Somebody fucked up somebody's sandwich or some shit. Lots of yelling. Arab dudes fed up, not taking ANY shit.
  
  Tyrone and the Frank's door crew looking sharp. It's Tyrone and Terry's birthday. Love all of these guys like brothers.
  
  11:17pm First record: Herb Alpert "Rotation" from the Mastercuts Jazz/Funk series. In walks my man DJ Samir. We catch up over 2 Redstripes while classics are played and people filter in slowly. Samir says he hasn't DJ'd in a few months. Got a government job at the VA Hospital now. Trying to put a party together with DJ Center. Tells me found a 12" of Tom Browne "Thighs High" for $5 at A1. Dick. Tells me he first heard me playing at Don Hills in 1996. Long time ago. Still in my 20s. Damn. I play more shit. Patrice Rushen "You Remind Me". Kellee Patterson "Turn Out the Lights". The Jacksons "Show Me The Way To Go". Patti Austin. The older women get it.
  
  Set up my crates. Visible" De La Soul "Say No Go". Barrington Levy "Too Experienced". Kurtis Blow "The Breaks". Biggie "Hypnotize". Records below mine are Tyrone's that stay in the club.
  
  Crowd starts moving. Mary J Blige "You Bring Me Joy" really gets them up. Musiq "For the Night" keeps the pace. Should play something recent but fuck it, not feeling it. More RandB. Then "Gin and Juice". Then "Bitch Please" bootleg w/Xibit pictured here.
  
  My man Dom Nice shows up. We used to DJ together. Doing house parties in Fort Greene/Bed Stuy in 1988-1992. One time we threw a "Free James Brown" party at a brownstone. Jimmmy Fingers' apartment, before he was known as Jimmy Fingers and was just that obnoxious kid with the skateboard. There was so many people jumping up and down on the third floor, the ceiling started to collapse. One of Jimmy's roomates ran upstairs in hysterics, yelling that the walls were buckling, which they actually were. There was a big split down the ceiling of the 2nd floor. Plaster evereywhere. Whoa. Close call. I think it was during Todd Terry's "Samba" (House of Gypises). Love that track. Break down the walls.
  
  Playing with DJ infinite tonight. Not solo like usual. Special occasion - "The Taurus Affair". He takes over. I run upstairs. Disciple is already in his groove. Such a beautiful person. Always glowing. Disciple is a legend among house DJs in Brooklyn. Rep'd hard back in the early 90s. Went overseas a lot. Still does. Still beating it.
  
  Room filling up. Amu in the house (bald head, arms in the air), feeling it.Tells me she's too sweaty to hug me. Fuck that. I move in close. She's the sexiest woman alive I swear to God.
  
  Back at the booth.Two legends discussing a third legend. Disciple and Strafe (yes, "Set it Off on the left, y'all" Strafe) pass around a book of get well wishes for Camacho. Everybody writes in it. Camacho is one of the original underground NY DJs to blow up. Laid the foundation overseas for cats bringing the raw NY sound to the masses. Diabetes is doing a number on him, but he's fighting. Another soldier. Hanging on. I think about how he represented all of us back in the day. Putting in work, For real. Stay strong bro. We need heros.
  
  Back downstairs. Cake frosting ceiling. My favorite thing about Frank's. Digging this bartender. Seriously. Oh shit. I'm married. Get another Red Stripe and keep it moving.
  
  Head back to the stage at the back of the room, where the booth is. Room is really moving now. Slick Rick 'Mona Lisa". Everybody sings the Dionne Warwick shit. Everybody knows it. Gotta come back strong. Something hot.
  
  Girl in the green has had my eye all night. She can move. Her man is whatever. Not feeling him at all. Need another Red Stripe.
  
  DJ Infinite doing his thing. Plays that Swizz Beats "chillin in my beamer, listening to ether" shit. OH MY GOD that beat is crazy. This other girl in the green danced in that one spot the entire night. Beautiful. Knows her rockers and her soca. DJ One from Brooklyn (edge of frame) appreciates.
  
  I run through a bunch of reggae. Dom Nice gets on the mic and starts hyping the West Indians up. Funny how them Jamaicans turn on the accent when they get on the mic. Four Supercats. "Mud Up" into "Don Dadda" into "Nuff Man a Die" in to "Dem No Worry We". Then Capleton "Number One Pon The Look Good Chart". Somehow end up on "Chase Vampire". Then "Kimbo King". Always gets a reaction. Shabba Ranks "Wine Wine". "Bonafide Love" - "you may not beeee...a movie sta-ar". INfinite played all the super-fast new stuff so I can go strictly classics.
  
  Records all over the place. Visible: Mega Banton "Sound Boy Killing" (the original on the One Drop riddim). best of Reggae 2007 LP. Bunch of other dancehalll 12s. "Tell Me", "Tingaling", "Living Dangerously". I gotta bounce at 3:45 to make it to my next gig at Melting Pot. I run through as much reggae as I can. That's what I'm known for and the crowd keeps asking when I'm gonna "RUN DE CHOON!" Break out the "Joyride" doubles. Drop the drumroll. Bass hits. BOOM. Crowd like "ooooohhhh". Run through 16 bars of 7 songs. No more no less. Gotta change my needles. Pack up my shit with the quickness. TC helps me through the crowd with my crates.
  
  Out on Fulton street and hail the first car service I see. Hoping for a yellow but no luck. Egyptian dude. Rolls down his window "Where you going?" he says. Me: "Canal and Mott" How much you pay?" yellow cab would've been $10 with tip. "12" I tell him. "No sir. Must charge you $20". FUCK. Got no choice. Got to get to Melting Pot by 4am. It's 3:44. $20 it is. FUCK let's go. Zip past a deserted Junior's Cheescake. Brooklyn landmark. Pride of the boro.
  
  Manhattan Bridge. Trying to take photos out the window without dropping my new camera. Driver getting pissed off cuz the camera flash keeps going off in his rear view. Leave me along and just don't wreck, dude.
  
  Get to Melting Pot at 3:47am. Just made it. Room is packed. Loose is on the mic, bidding farewell to Nicky Siano who just finished. Damn I missed his whole set. I'm gonna say right here that I somehow don't have ONE picture of Loose. It's a fucking tragedy. Dude was always dancing with 3 chicks. Lucky bastard. Space looked great. Tons of balloons. Did Loft Kid Luis do them? Hmmm. I hear he's out of town. Damn. Wanted to see him more than almost anyone. His mom took him to every Loft party since the early 70s. Mancuso must be his Godfather or some shit.
  
  Kervyn gets on, working "Tribute". The turntables keep skipping. Not on rubber bands. Too many people dancing too close, shaking the ground. FUCK. Now I can't play any of the vinyl I brought. Was gonna lead off with "Say No Go" just to fuck with people. FUCK. What now? Gotta play CDs only. This messes up my whole vibe. Damn. Plus I have no idea what the other DJs played. FUCK.
  
  Go check in with Melting Pot's House Mama. Rhina. Always beautiful. Always smiling. I give her 3 mix CDs. Gotta pay tribute. she makes me a Tequila on the rocks. No charge. Sweet. I hate Cuervo but fuck it, I'm already 6 Red Stripes in and it's after 4.
  
  I get on. First record: Fela "Opposite People" (a short-ish edit I did with the "Ebioso" drums). Crowd feeling it. I crank up the booth. People cringe. I'm fucking deaf.
  
  Anne shows up. she breezed through the apartment at 7:15pm while I was digging through the record shelves. She worked in a community garden with kids all day. She balances out all the evil corporate advertising I do. She met her girl Melinda for dinner in Manhattan, then went to a movie premier at the Tribeca Film Festival, then went to a loft party in Red Hook Brooklyn, the came to hear me spin. She shows up with Andreas and my girl Ayo, who has been dancing with a company in the south of France for 8 months. Can't believe she made it!
  
  Kerri Chandler "Rising the Sun" - another 10 minute edit. I pretty much have to play this just to feel comfortable. I drink a Red Bull. Run the 83 West vocals from"It's The Spirit". Bass down. Mid up. Can't seem to lock the tempo. Fuck. Do two verses. Still have 4 minutes left. Eject. Put in Kem. Run Kem vocals on top. Herb Martin is right in front of me. Kamala and Kervyn to my left. Lil Ray comes up and demands "KILL IT JULIAN! DO IT!" Orders from the general. Can't fuck up now. Pressure's on. Lot of Shelter heads in the place. They get my CDs. Now I gotta deliver. And no vinyl. FUCK. There's alwaysa curve ball. Nothing is ever easy. Not for DJs.
  
  Play a couple more house tunes. Black Magic. Robert Owens. FUCK. Gotta do something original. Can't just play safe. Robbi says the Black Magic record is the best song of the night. FUCK IT. Drop Jesto Funk. You know, the B-side mix with the crazy long sax intro. Floor stops and looks confused. Bass drops like a bomb. "Come With Me.....Tonight's The Night". One of my favorite early 90s jams. Grooving at about 108 bpm or something. Crowd digging it. What the fuck goes with this? Kim English "It Makes a Difference". perfect. I actually wrote cue at 8:50 on the CD to skip the whole intro. Thank god I did that. Crowd really feeling it. Such a great song. Ray runs over "Now you GOT em!" Maybe I do. What next? Two Tons of Fun "Just us". No doubt. I can run the intro drums over that acapella part at the end of Kim English. Works fucking perfect. "Just Us" BLARING. Women run up and bless me.
  
  JV in the house. James Vincent. he's with Jenn. Always smiling. A DJ who dances. Thank god. I tell him how excited I am about doing the Bedford Hill's party next month. "Just Us" in to "Let Me Show The Way to Go". Even Herb is dancing. That makes me feel good. Big ass ankh pendant swinging. Now what? How deep can I go? "Little Boy Blue". Chaka. FUCK IT. Jamie 326 and Richie Rich from Chicago turned me on to this. Changed my life in just that way a song can. Been listening to it for 2 months straight. Song starts. Floor stops dead in their tracks. FUCK I guess not everybody is feeling this. Actually almost nobody. DAMN. Then a guy runs up almost in tears he's so happy, and bows to me gratefully. That made it all worth it. Some Shelter heads way in the back losing their mind. Reeling Lofting. OK. Don't sweat it. Damn those strings sound nice. Phil D. in the house. Dude always has a record bag. ALWAYS. Wayne with the sound. My man. Gotta find another record.
  
  Look around the room. People giving me the "c'mon man, give us something!" look. Transition back in to house. Boobjazz "Midnight Ceremony" seems about right. It's 5:15am. Red Bull has me wired. See Ken from Shelter. This guy wears a Superman shirt EVERY time he goes out. No exceptions. He's also a photographer. Wonderful guy. He's in my CD loop. Always have to hit him off. He tells me that Shelter got closed by the cops. Some new Sergeant giving them grief. DAMN. I was gonna go to Shelter after this. Also on the guestlist at Pacha for some 24 hour S+M party. Fuck that. Pacha's all uptown n shit. Nah. Run some more house. Cute girl in her 20s comes up and asks "who is this wonderful singer?" Kenny Latimore, baby. I play the long instrumental first, where it builds up from just the keys,. Then the vocal. Crowd jumping again. Live drums! Thank you Masters at Work. Kervyn tells me I'm done at 5:30. FUCK. Though I was playing til 7. Damn. Should I have played differently. Second guessing again. I end with "Umi Says". Everybody sings "I want my people to be free to be free to be free". And I'm done. Just like that. Seems like I barely played 15 records. I get another Tequila and dance to that Jenifer Hudson song. "What about what I need". Love it. Birthday cake for Loose. Lots of long hugs. Can't BELIEVE I didn't get a photo. FUCK. Kervyn plays some nice tunes. Osunlade. Whatev. Kamala plays "Help Is On The Way". Damn homegirl is cute. Kervyn plays "Endgames". I do some sloppy Spanish Hustle with the wife. VERY sloppy. Legs tired from standing since 11pm. Crowd is thin now. Gracious thanks to my man Kervyn and his partner Kamala. Rhina. Maggie. Cute girl with the glasses at the door. Get my money and I'm out. Dude yells out of a parked car as I head for Canal "NICE SET!"
  
  Jump back in a cab. Back on the bridge. Sun coming up. Gloomy day. heading to the crib with wifey and Sal Paradise for a 7:30am spliff. Sal had also played at his regular gig in the village last night. Came straight to Melting Pot just to hang. I would have included his photo, but he looks like too much of a burnout in the photo and I'm a nice guy.
  
  Records back home safe. Shoes off. I tell Sal (Sam) about this portrait of Sly Stone. Friend of mine, Valentine (just one name, like Madonna) lived in a loft in San Francisco with a bunch of guys. one of them was a floor refinisher, and also a Meth addict. One day he called up my boy Valentine and told him he was refinishing the floors in Sly Stone's parents' house. They had just moved and left all kinds of stuff in the basement. He was to tweaked on Meth too drive home, so he said whomever in the loft picks him up gets in their car gets anything they want in the house. This is what Valentine got. He mailed it to me 3 months ago as a belated wedding present. That is some LOVE right there. Visible: Eric B+Rakim "Don't Sweat The Technique". Pretenders second album. Le Tigre. Husker Du. Super Disco Brakes. Tascam tape decks. CD dubber. Asshole dying plant.
  
  My apartment is a wreck. Weed should have made me sleepy but no, too much Red Bull. And no Shelter. DAMN. Spliff. Drink some seltzer. Anne falls asleep on couch immediatley. I call a car for Sam. Old BLS tapes from 88. I used to draw pictures of skeletons DJing n shit on them with colored markers and write corny shit like DIS BE DEADLY and DEF RHYMES. Embarrassing.
  
  Can't sleep. Fuck it. I'm posting this shit on the web........Visible: Earh Wind and Fire "Another Time". Jane's Addiction. Donny Hathaway. Talking Heads. A little red bit of Janet "Control" LP. Kool & The Gang "Wild and Peaceful". Fuck I need to go to sleep.
  
  
• MY EVENING WITH SATAN
  
  For the last 6 weeks I have been working on a show called Metal Mania for VH1. Doing so has thankfully re-connected with me a bit with long neglected metal head past. Not that I was ever a real metal head, mind you. Prior to succumbing to hip hop, I was basically a hardcore kid who got really in to Motorhead and Metallica and Maiden and a few other bands that started with the letter M. Anyway, in order to get in the right head for making kick ass evil graphics, I bought Metallica's first 3 albums again and stayed up very very late every night listening to them while I worked. Hadn't heard these tracks in about 17 years and I still remembered the words. Say what you want about those guys now, but in their day, nobody could fuck with Metallica.
  
  Anyway, the reason I mention this is that my boy Stewart recently told me about an upcoming black metal show at BBking's Bar and Grill and asked me if I was down to get my evil on. Death metal and Black Metal were never really my thing, but I've been banging my head so much at my computer as of late, I figured, what the fuck. I should preface the following with the admission that I know VERY little about this genre of metal, so forgive any factual errors that may present themselves in my newbie report.
  
  
  The show was 4 bands: Averse Sefira, Nachtmystium, Goatwhore, and the headliner: 1349, who are the real deal from Norway. In case you are unaware, it is the Norwegians more than anybody that really took this black metal shit and ran with it. I guess the Pagan Viking thing really struck a chord with those crazy bastards. They've been getting a lot of press over the last few years, thanks to a few murders and a few church burnings. They take this evil shit pretty seriously.
  
  BBking's Bar + Grill is a cheezy tourist venue located right in the middle of all the Bladerunner-meets-Disney madness that is Times Square. On top of that, this show was starting at 7pm on a Sunday night, which is prime-time tourist douchebag hour (actually, that is 24/7 up in that part of the city). Funny thing is, I happen to know that BBKing's does a gospel choir brunch on Sundays, so basically, they went from God to Satan in about 45 minutes. Whomever books that place definitely has a sense of humor. They also have a big theater marquee right on 42nd street, which simply said 1349 and GOATWHORE in big black letters. You could have made a movie just catching tourist reactions to the word Goatwhore, trust me.
  
  The venue itself, is fucking cheezy. It looks like something straight out of Circus Circus in Las Vegas. Big shiny glossy wooden bar. Cheap vinyl banquets on the perimeter. The ugliest carpet on planet earth that they must have stolen from a casino, and a lame generic staff clad in black. That said, it is still a really good place to see a band. Good size, good acoustics, and you can see the stage from anywhere in the place.
  
  I was super excited to be going to my first metal show in over 15 years. The last one I attended was...fuck...I'm not even sure. Maybe Motorhead/Manowar in about 1990 at the old Ritz in NYC. Wait...didn't the old Ritz close before that? Shit. Maybe it was even in the 80s. Fuck, I'm old.
  
  I was really curious what a black metal audience would look like. I assumed that if their heroes took the evil stuff so seriously that they were painting themselves like corpses, burning churches, and murdering their friends, this crowd might have similar hobbies. I walked in at 8:15pm to discover that they looked pretty much like any regular old run-of-the-mill metal head. Well, like that, but without any of the Party-Hardy Wayne's World Excellent vibe that was always present at any metal show in the 80s/90s. These people were not like that. They were not partying dudes making out with two chicks in the backseat of a camaro. cool. They were not cool. They were outsiders. They were weird. They were comic book nerds. Trenchcoat mafiosos. They seek out the most extreme music that alienates as many people as possible. All of that I can relate to a great deal.
  
  Every single person was in black jeans/black Tshirt with band logo/black leather jacket. And I do mean every single person. There were some chicks there. Not many. but a few, and some of them even looked like they owned a mirror. The level of corpse-paint in the house was very disappointing. Only a handful of kids even bothered. Everybody else was kinda blah. I was really hoping for a considerably higher degree of evil, but it was not to be. Some douche next to me even had one of the standard leather jackets with all the Satanic band patches on it, then way down in the corner, by his waist, he had a fucking "Return of the Jedi" patch. JEDI? are you fucking kidding me? I can think of no two forces more diametrically opposed than Satan and the Ewoks.
  
  Evil : ZERO.
  
  Gay furry puppets: ONE.
  
  Then, when I went to the bathroom, some guy was bitching at the bathroom attendant because he didn't have any hair gel. Getting all whiny about hair gel? The dark lord does not approve. I laughed at him out loud while at the urinal. Couldn't resist. I think I laughed because I was already on the verge of a chuckle after reading the upcoming BB King schedule, which was posted over the urinal. There was an Sunday night gig with a band called BIG SHOT - a Billy Joel cover band. I don't know why, but the fact that somebody would call their band Big Shot, without any irony, was funny as shit to me.
  
  Then I finally see a kid who's really down for the cause:
  Platform goth boots. Leather trenchcoat. And his face painted like Kind Diamond.
  Now we're getting somewhere.
  I sidled up next to him as Goatwhore took the stage, hoping that people would think he was in my crew and were both total bad-asses. As soon as the band got on stage, he pulled out a digital camera and took about 6 pictures OF HIMSELF, pausing between shots to check if he got his expression right. What a fucking douchebag. I should have sent him to Asmodeus right then, but I had paid $17.50 plus a $2.50 service charge, and I wasn't gonna let this nancyboy Crow-wannabe spoil my one chance to feel the power of Satan again. No way.
  
  The show itself was great. Goatwhore kicked fucking ass. A wall of roaring sound. Like super-fast speed metal with everything removed except crunchy chords. No guitar solos. No noodly riffs. Just head on full frontal assault, that would occasionally switch up in to these wicked crunchy slow parts that demanded a severe head banging. I had forgotten how close a cousin black metal is to the thrash of yesteryear. At least to my old ears. Like the fastest D.R.I. song, played on 45, with down-tuned guitars that are ear-splitting and tight as hell. And of course, the prerequisite guy yelling like a demon on top of all that in a voice that sounds like gravel ripping through your flesh when you wiped out on your bike when you were 10. And the song titles were the best part. Every tune had an 8 word title, something along the lines of "This song is called...My eyes are the chaos witnessing the befoulment in the devil's abyss". I do not exaggerate.
  
  More than anything, I was just really struck by the fact that blues music had somehow evolved in to this. 50 years ago it was 4 bar blues, now it's fucking demons screaming over somebody's warped interpretation of what they think the soundtrack of Hell is. How fucking cool is that? Then again, I suppose Wagner and a few others have certainly done something very similar in their own way. So maybe this is not such a radical offspring after all. In any case, I was digging it.
  
  1349 took it all one step further with the whole makeup and costume thing. One of the guitarists looked as close to Eddie from Iron Maiden as a human can get. All of them had black blood painted on their faces as if they had just drank some Penzoil. I wonder who did that first? The whole "dried black blood stains below the mouth" thing. It's a real black metal staple. Probably all goes back to the Godfather, Alice Cooper. Man I wish I would have seen him in his day. the BiIlion Dollar Baby tour? Whoa. That would have been amazing. My brother in law still won't shut up about it to this day. Dick. Anyhoo, it makes for good theatre. To my undiscerning ears, their music was pretty much a lot like Goatwhore, but without the cool slow breakdowns. So there was less crunchy shit to bang your head to. Bummer. Still, the crowd was feeling it. Some semblance of a pit going on in front of the stage. Thank god kids still have some music they deem slam-worthy that is not just fucking 311 or some bullshit. 1349 were definitely more evil, which I think pleased the crowd a great deal. There was no between song banter. No dropping out of character. They weren't fucking around, and people appreciated it.
  
  So for me. the night was a resounding success. I had really been needing some metal in my life. Hip Hop is all bitches and bling and bravado. House is all peace and love and hope. I needed some Hell and death and Satan to balance it all out. Mission accomplished.
  
  
• MUNDANE MYSTERIES: HAVE CARROTS WILL TRAVEL
  
  New York City is a wonderful town. If you pay attention, you can always find that something odd is going on somewhere, somehow. These moments, while mundane and incidental at the time, tend to add up to something greater than the sum of their parts, at least in my brain that is.
  
  Two weeks ago, while walking to work on Hester Street, I came across a mysterious item that has had me puzzled and scratching my head furiously ever since. This was on Hester Street, between Bowery and Chrystie. The time was approximately 10:30am. On the South side of the street, the East end of the block is littered with a few Chinese businesses. The West end of the block is now a construction site. This was where that cool old Chinese movie theater was on Bowery and Hester. They tore it down last year and there seems to be nothing but a big hole there right now. Who "they" is in this case I am not quite sure.
  
  I was walking west along the south side, next to the poster-splattered plywood wall surrounding the construction site. About 2/3rds of the way down the block, I came upon the most curious of objects. It was a large brown vinyl suit case. Cheaply made and at least 10 years old. It was sitting on the sidewalk up against the plywood wall. The flap was open. Abandoned luggage is not all of that rare a sight in NYC. However, this suitcase was different. It was filled to the brim with bright orange CARROTS. And not just any carrots, mind you, but gigantic carrots.
  
  I stopped dead in my tracks. A suitcase full of carrots??? WTF??? I quickly did a 360, scanning the perimeter and any visibly windows for hidden cameras. Was this some kind of joke? Nobody else seemed to notice. People continued to walk past me and nobody even glanced at the suitcase. I gave it a little nudge with my foot just to make sure I hadn't imagined the whole thing. Sure enough, it was real.
  
  This was a BIG suit case. The kind of suitcase you could pack for a 3 week vacation and still have room to spare. So I can imagine, given the number and size of those carrots, that this had been considerably heavy when closed.
  
  But it was just so damn BAFFLING!
  
  A) WHY THE FUCK would you carry a giant suitcase full of giant carrots?
  
  B) If you are inclined to be weird enough to carry a suitcase full of giant carrots, HOW ON EARTH do you LOSE the suitcase full of carrots? Did you have several suitcases full of giant carrots and simply misplaced one of them by accident?
  
  It boggles the mind.
  
  I tried to piece together some kind of plausible scenario. This was only half a block from the FUNG WA BUS stop. The Fung Wa bus is that weird Chinese bus that goes to Boston for like $10 or something. I often walk past this very spot and there are always Chinese ladies yelling at me to get on the bus "YOU GO TO BOSTON! HERE! HERE!". Most people getting on and off the bus are carrying luggage of some kind. Did somebody bring a suitcase full of carrots all the way from Boston. Are carrots really that much cheaper in Massachusetts? Was somebody hoping to start a new life in the big city with all the money they made from selling carrots? Maybe they grew up on a quaint country farm that grew carrots. Maybe they were finally leaving home, and just like those movies, when Billy finally leaves his home town, his grandfather reaches in to a cigar box and pulls out his nest egg of $132 and says "go on son, you'll need this more than me where you're goin'..." and then Billy hugs his dear old grandpa, sheds a tear, and runs and stops the bus just as it is pulling away. Like that, except his grandfather didn't give him cash, he gave him this brown suitcase. maybe he told Billy "I put something very special in that suitcase. but Billy...you gotta promise your Grandpa you won't look in there until you get to New York City". So Billy traveled all this way, teeming with excitement about what wonders lay within the suitcase. Was it full of money? Gold bars? Jewels? Would it change his life? Would it be just the thing he needed to make a new start in the city of eight million stories? So he finally gets to New York City. He leaps off of the bus, drags the suitcase halfway down the block so as to get free of the crowd, and he slooowwwllly unzips the cover. "New York City!" he thinks to himself "Just like I pictured it! Skyscrapers and everythang!" But then he peels back the suitcase. "CARROTS!?!?!?" WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!" He curses his crazy old Grandpa. Must have forgotten his meds again. DAMN! Just then, some shady character comes up and says "Hey man, wanna make five bucks? run this across the street for me real quick". He hands Billy a brown paper bag and disappears. Just then cop cars come screeching up. They grab Billy. The brown paper bag is filled with Heroin. "Huh? What? I didn't know! I 'm still fucked up about this god damn case of carrots I've been dragging halfway across the god damned country!" Bu the cops will have none of it. They throw Billy in the car and speed away, leaving the lonely suitcase of gigantic carrots. Hmmm.
  
  I didn't bring a camera. FUCK. And I was late for work. FUCK. As eight million carrot-filled suitcase scenarios raced around my mind, I headed down the block. I immediately called Anne, who works just a few blocks away.
  
  "I just saw the most amazing thing EVER!" I exclaimed "You HAVE to leave work RIGHT NOW and go take a picture of it"
  
  "What the fuck are you talking about?" she said, annoyed.
  
  "OK.....you sitting down?"
  
  "What the fuck are you talking about?"
  
  "OK OK......on Hester street.......just between Chrystie and Bowery.....South side of the street.......there is a suitcase.......it's on the sidewalk........it's brown.........and it's filled to the fucking brim with GIGANTIC CARROTS!!!"
  
  "Carrots? Suitcase? What are you talking about? Carrots? You're not making any sense" She was not amused.
  
  "I'm SAYIN'......there's a suitcase........it's full of carrots.......I didn't have a camera.........you have to borrow a camera from your office and go take a picture RIGHT NOW!"
  
  "Where is this?"
  
  "Right on Hester Street, like 2 blocks from your office! Please please please please please please please go right now and take a photo before it's too late!"
  
  "yeah..uhm...I'll get right on that" she replied snarkily.
  
  "I'm serious!" I pleaded "It's like the coolest thing EVER!"
  
  "Yeah OK. I gotta go. I'll try to check out your carrots when i have a moment"
  Anne's tone was most dismissive.
  
  Two hours later, because she loves me, she went to go see the brown vinyl suitcase full of gigantic carrots, but it was gone.
  
  The End.
  
  
• MUNDANE MYSTERIES: WHO WANTS CHICKEN?
  
  Recounting the mystery of the carrot suitcase brings to mind an eerily similar encounter I had last year.
  
  I live just east of the corner of Flatbush and Tillary. This is a heavy traffic intersection, as it is somewhat of a crossroads between both the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn bridge, as well as the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. There is constant flow of cars and trucks. In addition, there is a fire station and a police station just down the block, so there is quite often large teams of fire trucks and/or squad cars coming and going.
  
  Despite all that, sometime in the early winter of 2006, somebody managed to deposit a large silver drawer full of RAW CHICKEN right on the corner of Tillary and Flatbush. It was a big metal drawer that looked as though it came from some sort of industrial kitchen cabinet or something. It was brushed stainless steel and undoubtedly heavy by the look of it. Oh and did I mention that it was filled with raw chicken? Like, maybe 15 half chickens. Skinned and completely raw.
  
  A) Who keeps a big metal drawer full of raw chicken? I mean, really.
  
  B) How does one LOSE a big metal drawer of raw chicken? Assuming that carrying around a big metal drawer of raw chicken is not a daily occurrence, wouldn't you notice if you misplaced it?
  
  C) if it was, in fact, their intention to discard this metal drawer full of raw chicken, why would they pick the busiest intersection in all of Brooklyn to do so, instead of the nearest dumpster?
  
  D) and again, WHO THE FUCK keeps a big metal drawer full of raw chicken?
  
  I was dumbfounded.
  
  Everybody who lived in my building, and everybody who walked down the street, just pretended like it wasn't there. The second day after it's appearance, I stood outside for 25 minutes watching people walk past it. Nobody even glanced. I mean, it's not every day that you see a big metal drawer full of raw chicken is it? Seriously.
  
  To make things worse, you can imagine that a metal drawer full of raw chicken exposed to the elements 24/7 is going to take a turn for the worse. Sunshine. Freezing rain. Wind. Heat. Cold. After 10 days it had transformed it to this primordial ooze that was just one big square hunk of raw chicken goo. The shapes of the individual chickens were no longer recognizable. And the smell? Fuggedhabouit.
  
  I found it rather odd that nobody in my building noticed it. You couldn't leave the place without walking right past it. I mentioned it to the elevator guy. Nothing. My next door neighbor. Nothing. There was some stupid petition up in my lobby to stop the city from building a homeless shelter 2 blocks away. Assholes.
  
  I grabbed a Sharpie out of my bag and wrote on the petition "HOMELESS??? WHO THE FUCK CARES?! I AM WAY MORE CONCERNED ABOUT THE METAL DRAWER FULL OF RAW CHICKEN THAT HAS BEEN DECOMPOSING ON THE CORNER FOR TWO FUCKING WEEKS!!!" No response.
  
  Two days later some loser took a wimpy Ballpoint pen and replied "so why don't you clean it up then?" Fucker.
  
  After three weeks, it vanished just as quickly and mysteriously as it had appeared.
  
  Maybe these strange objects appear only to me. Maybe these are all signs pointing me to my true purpose in life. First the cheese puff, then the chicken, then the carrots. What can it all mean? If only a giant rabbit would appear to me in my dreams and explain it all.
  
  
  
  
• 2/26/07 - LONG TIME NO BLOG
  
  Been a long time since I've blogged. I guess I've been waiting for some good shit to happen to me. maybe I need to go get kidnapped or something. Maybe I need to experiment with exotic drugs and have four ways with European chicks in the bathroom at Crobar. Maybe not.
  
  I haven't DJ'd in forever, due to my right hand being all kinds of fucked up. The Doc says I have "Dequervain's Syndrome". How fucking cool does that sound? As much as I am psyched to finally be able to tell people I have A SYNDROME, it is quite the polar opposite of cool. It's this fucked up condition where the two tendons on your thumb are super tight from using the mouse too damn much. Some little thing that wraps around the tendon is swollen, and basically anytime I do anything with my right hand it feels like somebody just stuck an ice pick in to my wrist. Good times. I got a shot of cortisone, which has helped tremendously. Now I'm wearing this crazy robo-brace as much as I can, which seems to be helping. It's been 2 months. If it doesn't get better, I will need to get surgery, which will suck. Damn computers.
  
  I have about 4 mixtapes buzzing around in my head and will hopefully get to them in the coming weeks if my wrist heals up. I spent most of January recording my entire house music collection to CD, Now if i only had a gig...
  
  I've been getting some calls for work from people who've seen this site, so I feel good about taking the time to do it right and really fill it out with all of my work. Big up Neil Stuber once again for making it all possible.
  
  Other than that, I've just been crazy busy freelancing. Doing some more broadcast work for VH1, which should start airing in May or so. One of them is a heavy metal show, so I've been listening to Metallica's first three albums non stop for the last month. It had been almost 20 years since I was a Metallica freak. I still remember all the words and the air drum solos and everything. Man did they fucking kick ass back in the day. "Ride The Lightning" is like... the PERFECT album. I missed them on their "Kill Em All" tour, when they played this heavy metal dive in Cincinnati called "Annies". I used to have a bootleg of the show that I would listen to for weeks on end. I finally saw them open for Ozzy in 87, and I was one of about 12 people standing up and going crazy. Ozzy's crowd just sat there and booed them. Funny how five year's later they were all on Metallica's dick. Losers. Anyway, I'm having a blast listening to Metallica and drawing skulls and pentagrams until the wee hours. It's like I'm in 10th grade all over again. Sometimes I am truly amazed at how i miraculously managed to turn my adolescent passions for music and drawing in to a viable career. I am definitely counting my blessings.
  
  
• HOLIDAY HIGHLIGHTS
  
  Christmas with the family. Always a swell time. Many people I know tend to dread the drama of family gatherings, but I have been blessed with a pretty chill group of reasonable folks who enjoy each other's company. Christmas at my house is all about eating big dinners, drinking copious amounts of sherry and port and red wine, long drawn-out political debates at the dinner table, and sitting around the house reading books and magazines while some sort of classical music plays in the background. This year's highlights, in no particular order:
  
  1. My Mom calling Richard Hell a "hater". If you knew my Mom, and Richard Hell, you would understand why this is so fucking funny. We were discussing Daniel Pinchback, an old friend of Richard's who recently appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report. He just released a book, "The Return of Quetzalcoatl", about his drug experiences in South America and his conversion to that whole 2012 Mayan Armageddon cult. Anyway, apparently Richard had run in to him on the street recently, and, much to his amusement, Mr Pinchback was raving about the fact that Sting really liked his book. Richard was laughing at the thought of Sting being a positive endorsement, at which point my Mom blurted out "...Oh Richard, you're just a hater!". You had to be there.
  
  2. My mom describing why it took so long for my Dad to love South Park the way she does. Yes. my parents really do love South Park. This came as a severe shock to me too, since it is about as polar opposite from Masterpiece Theatre as you can get. Nevertheless, they can quote Cartman with the best of them, and my Mom is particularly fond of "Mr Hanky, The Christams Poo". She also related to us that it took my father so long to warm up to the show because he was constantly frustrated by not being able to understand a word the kids said, especially KENNY. The image of my easily frustrated Dad shaking his fist at Kenny on the screen made my whole year. I don't even need a birthday present now.
  
  3. My Dad and I got each other the same book for Christmas - "Imperial Life In the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Actually, the truth is my Dad bought it for himself the day before Christmas. Upon receiving it from me, he promptly threw his copy in a brown paper bag and gave his copy to me. I think we had both seen the author interviewed on the Jon Stewart Show. The book is truly astounding. The myriad of ways the Bush administration botched the initial post-war Iraq is simply mind-blowing. Highly recommended.
  
  4. My Mom's review of the movie MOUSEHUNT - "That mouse was such a good little actor!" This, after she ridiculed an aunt of mine for her review of BABE: PIG IN THE CITY;, of which my Aunt was reported to have said "I can't believe how well they trained that pig to talk!"
  
  
• OLD PEOPLE REALLY ARE MAD AS HELL AND THEY'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE
  
  It has been my lifelong dream to open a bar. It is something that gnaws at the back of my brain from time to time. Every few years I allow it to creep to the forefront, and I seriously consider making it happen. This time around, It just so happens that a good friend of mine revealed to me that he has always had a similar itch. Two fuck-ups are better than one. So he and I have been conspiring for a few weeks and have agreed to at least do some research and figure out if it is even feasible.
  
  I am also fortunate enough to have a few friends who have made a career of the bar business. I have been interrogating them slowly over the last month or so to learn the tricks of the trade, so that we can hit the ground running if and when we do get our shit together and actually make this happen. One thing they all tell me is, before you even pick a location, go to a community board meeting in the neighborhood where you're thinking of opening a place, so you can gauge the level of community hostility you will be dealing with during your liquor license application process, and also simply during your tenure as a bar owner.
  
  I took this advice to heart, and recently attended a community board meeting in Brooklyn to see what's what. It was an eye-opeing experience, to say the least.
  
  I arrived promptly at 6:30 on a snowy Tuesday night. The meeting was held in the lunchroom of a senior citizens home, located deep in the heart of Brooklyn. The room was extremely well lit, filled with long lunchroom tables and folding chairs. The walls were tastefully adorned with oversized drug store valentines and acrylic paintings one can only assume were the work of residents of the home. More valentines and red balloon hearts hung from the ceiling. Puppies with valentines. Pandas with valentines. Gigantic-headed cupids with valentines. In short: festive nursing home chic.
  
  A short Yoda-like man with gigantic glasses sat in the center of a long table at the end of the room. Community board members sat along side him. There was one microphone on the front table, and an additional mic at a podium alongside. There was a small PA set up, and some kind of archaic recording device next to the podium. It looked like something out of Jules Verne, and it was certainly not of this millennium.
  
  Other board members were scattered among us plebes in the audience, which was made up of a wide cross-section of the beloved citizens of Brooklyn: blacks, whites, hispanics, and a few Hassidim - who tended to have a bit of a noble air about them; due, I suppose, to their gigantic crown-like fur hats and their insistence on keeping their big burly coats on, giving them a rather large presence. A few of the board members seemed to be in their 40s & 50s. A handful of people in the crowd were under 40 like me - presumably small business owners. Everybody else seemed well in to retirement.
  
  The Yoda guy with the giant glasses kicked things off soon enough. He read through the evening's agenda. When he read off the list of bars and restaurants seeking license renewal, he made an offhand comment that he hoped the increase of bars and restaurants would slow down a bit in the future, as every block is beginning to smell of booze. This personal digression elicited no response from the crowd.
  
  At this point, the public hearing was to begin. There is no voting by the board during the public hearing. It is simply an opportunity for citizens or officials of some capacity to address the public, a chance for the public to be heard, and a short period of time in which the community can openly discuss pressing issues.
  
  The first item was an old Italian guy who wants a street named after his Dad. He spoke how his father had fought in WW2 and lived in the community for 80 years. His sister also spoke. her name was Rose Marie and she had a gravely Brooklyn accent that made you want to go get a drink with her and listen to her gossip about the neighbors. She insisted her father was a great man. The audience seemed to agree and they politely applauded, and that was that.
  
  Next was an old, nun-shaped woman who wants an intersection named after an elderly woman that also recently passed. This didn't seem very interesting until she informed us that this woman was the very reason they started a Women's Baseball Hall of Fame, and that she had a much fabled career as a professional baseball player during WW2 and throughout the 1950s. At this point Yoda spoke up and gave witness to her claim that the departed could really play ball in her day. The audience clapped even louder.
  
  My mind began to wander and I studied the paintings and valentines on the surrounding walls. There was an amazing painting of an extremely anthropomorphic yellow labrador, and another painting which depicted a single green sock and a teddy bear hanging from a clothesline. Teddy's right arm was considerably longer than his left. It possessed an eerie calm with a slight pinch of hopelessness. Why only one sock? Why the bear? Who could say.
  
  Next up was a city official who was obligated to inform the community of the city's plan to offer up one of the neighborhood's vacant lots to developers for a 265 unit apartment building. Man oh man did she get an earful. Slowly, as she spoke, you could feel a momentum of resentment growing among the elderly in the room. The minute the issue was opened up to the room for discussion, the old folks stood up and just went OFF on this chick.
  
  The gist of their gripe was that the city had not included them in their plans for this lot, and they were really hoping for a senior citizens home to be built there. It was clear that both the board members and the citizens felt very left out of the decision making process. Just about every person demanded more affordable housing for seniors, and in the same breath managed to mention WW2, to great applause. One woman went so far as to say the accommodation and care of seniors is THE most important issue, period. These old people are fucking pissed off, believe me. They also love to clap, and they can't get enough of hearing about WW2. Citizen after outraged citizen stood up and gave this woman a piece of their mind. Many of them declared their intention to block the development. One old guy named Guido was particularly outraged. He looked like he was ready to fight somebody, and I'm pretty sure this guy could still kick my ass. He insisted that he had not fought in WW2 only to come home and have the city allow a vacant lot to be developed without consulting him personally. After all, that is what America is all about.
  
  This went on an on until Yoda finally put a stop to it, and insisted that they take up the discussion later on.
  
  Just as we were about to move on, a gigantic smelly woman sitting near me started semi-ranting about how they should all be signing petitions about this. Her soliloquy culminated in a show-stopping declaration which set the room ablaze:
  "YOU SHOULD HAVE THESE FOLKS SIGNING PETITIONS ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW!! CUZ JUST LOOK AT 'EM! THEY AIN'T GON' BE AROUND MUCH LONGER!!!!"
  
  KABOOM!! Chaos ensued. People under 60 erupted in laughter, People over 60 seemed alarmed and outraged. People over 80 were all 'WHAT DID SHE SAY???" It was quite a scene, I can assure you.
  
  After minutes of buzzing outrage, things subsided a bit. Yoda shut the big lady down right quick, and it was time to move on.
  
  Next up was some guy in a taupe suit saying something about kids needing more parks. He was also rambling about environmental issues. Blah blah global warming blah blah reduce emissions blah blah the temperature will be 2 degrees warmer in 20 years blah blah blah. Then out of nowhere he mentioned he was hiring teenage lifeguards for the summer city pools. You must be 16 years of age, be able to swim 50 yards in 35 seconds, and you need to have one eye with 20/30 vision and the other eye with 20/40 vision. Starting salary is $11.75 and hour. Not too shabby for a 16 year old punk with mismatched eyes. For some reason, all I could think of was Kathy Moriarty sunbathing at the city pool in glorious black and white in Raging Bull.
  
  Next up were two separate sequential speakers wearing the exact same shade of burgundy. What are the odds? Each had something of importance to say on completely different subjects, but my mind was wandering again.
  
  There was a large hand-written sign that read "BINGO. ONLY SENIORS ALLOWED TO PLAY BINGO". Why the sign's author felt the need to write the word bingo twice I'll never know. There was another sign behind the main table which read "SHOPPING CARTS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE DINING ROOM "TO PREVENT ACCIDENTS" ". The last three words were indeed in quotes. Another odd grammatical choice, no doubt by the same guy who made the redundant bingo sign.
  
  An older man came over to where I was sitting and tried to steal my print outs of the night's agenda.
  I was like "Uhm....those are mine"
  He looked at me with a great deal of suspicion and said "you REALLY gonna take these home with you tonight?" as if he was sure I was not.
  "Uhm...yeah, I am".
  He stomped off to another table.
  
  At this point I'm about an hour and a half in to the meeting. Good times.
  
  Eventually the public hearing ends, and half the room gets up and leaves. Apparently, if the floor is not open for them to complain, these folks are not too interested in hanging around. But man oh man did they like to gripe. And clap. My father, who is 70 himself, told me "maybe we should call ourselves the GRUMPIEST generation.
  
  Now came the part where the board members actually vote yay or nay on issues at hand.
  
  First yoda talks about a restaurant that wants to reduce the number of outside tables.
  "Any Nays?"
  Silence.
  "Ays?"
  A resounding "AY!" from all members.
  "The Ays have it. Motion is carried. Next item?"
  
  Finally we get the part where they are voting to renew liquor licenses. They call somebody in the audience up to the podium to deal with the bar and restaurant issues. Out of fucking nowhere steps this big 6 foot 3 Russian linebacker-looking mother fucker in a black sweater with the most AMAZING hair on the planet. He is one part Omar Shareef, one part Hercules, with this giant helmet of thick wavy black hair. On top of that, when he talks, he sounds EXACTLY like Borat. I was shook- like "Whoa! This is the guy who's gonna determine my fate in the bar business!" He could crush me with one finger.
  
  He then proceeds to very nonchalantly read a list of 10 or so bars that are up for renewal. He states matter-of-factly that there are no objections to their renewal.
  Yoda thanks him and requests a vote.
  "Motion to renew licenses for the businesses in question"
  "Any Nays?"
  Silence.
  "Ays?"
  A resounding "AY!" from everybody.
  "The Ays have it. Motion is carried. Next item?"
  
  And that was it. It took all of 2 minutes and from what I can tell, bars and restaurants are not even on anybody's radar. It was a complete non-issue. There were no requests for NEW licenses up for a vote, so unfortunately I couldn't learn anything specific about that process. Still, from what I could tell, that is the least of their concerns. Good news I guess.
  
  I hung around for a few more minutes. Some bald guy got up to announce that an old Rabbi had died, mentioning that he had fought the Germans in the Polish army for 4 years before serving as a Rabbi in Greenpoint from 1949 to 2007. I was a bit confused by the Polish thing, because my uneducated self thought Germany's defeat of Poland was almost instantaneous. (Note to self: google Poland/WW2 when you get home). Yoda once again chimed in with his own anecdote about the Rabbi and WW2, about how the Polish army were brave souls who had fought the German tanks on horseback. Crazy bastards.
  
  The discussion turned back to the issue of blocking the development of the vacant lot. I had had enough by this point so I broke out.
  
  I really wanted to try to buy the painting of the dog, but I couldn't figure out who to ask. Maybe next time.
  
  Ever since then I have been thinking about these people and how WW2 is still so present in their every day lives. I mean, this was 50 years ago, but it is clearly still on the tip of their tongue. The defining event for the generation. And what does my generation have that compares? What is our defining moment?
  
  The first thing that comes to mind is MTV. Hmmm. Defeating the evil murderous Nazis and bringing peace and stability to the world VS watching a video for 'Rock Me Amadeus".
  
  Or maybe it is the internet. Happened in my early adulthood, and it certainly has changed the world.
  
  Or will it be terrorism. Will 9/11 and the ever-growing list of terrorist acts end up being what defines my generation's experience on the planet. Ugh. I need a drink. Maybe I should open that bar.
  
  
  
• REST IN PEACE DISCO D
  
  I was surfing the web when I came across a post on a DJ message board saying that Dave Shayman had killed himself. I gasped. I hadn't spoken to him in over six months. I immediately called my boy Alex and the shocking news was confirmed.
  
  Dave and I worked together for over a year at EyeballNYC. He was actually working with Alex and Expansion Team, but they shared our office space, so he was always around. We bonded on our love of DJing and good music. At the time he was still playing mostly Detroit ghetto tech, but his knowledge of music was impressive. He was super friendly and always smiling A total joker and always fun to be around.
  
  After he left Expansion team, he hooked up with another friend of mine, Max Glazer. Max and I know each other from the On the Go days, before he blew up as the next Bobby Konders (white reggae DJ) with his partner and mixtape don Cypher Sounds. Dave started producing dancehall tracks and engineering hits like Nina Sky's "Move Your Body". His big break, or so he thought, was doing a track on 50's last album - "Ski Mask Way". This got him a lot of press and a deal with K-FED to produce his album. Yes, KFED. He was also really into Brazilian hip hop, and was spending a lot of time down there, where he worked with some local talent and even met a Brazilian playboy model, whom he was engaged to for a short time. Sadly, we all know what happened with KFED and the now infamous "Po Po Zao". That must have been a tough pill to swallow.
  
  We rarely talked in recent years, but I would run in to him occasionally at Expansion Team events. We spoke about doing a DJ action figure line, but I was a bit skeptical, since he wanted to kick it off with a launch of his own doll rather, than somebody already famous like Funkmaster Flex. But Dave was that guy. Never doubting himself. Always uber confident in his own success. And it took him very far too.
  
  It appears that his bi-polar condition and the stress of every day life finally got the better of him. This makes me incredibly sad, but if his life had become that unbearable, then perhaps that is what was meant to be. He will be sorely missed. RIP.
  
  
  
  
• 12/16/06 - IF I HAD KNOWN STAR TREK WAS ON A FOUR TIMES A DAY, I WOULD HAVE QUIT MY JOB YEARS AGO
  
  Seriously, what better way to spend an entire day in your underwear? That said, the first couple of seasons of TNG suck ass. Tasha Yar needs to get kicked in the face, pronto. She did make the Trekkie movies, which is somewhat redeeming I suppose, though any time she is on camera, I want to kick her in the face. If you are a Tash Yar fan, please kick yourself in the face too. Then Email me a photo of you, pre-kick and post-kick.
  
  
• MY CONVERSATION WITH THE LUNCH LADIES
  
  This past Thanksgiving I had the odd experience of visiting a high school. I went to Buffalo to visit Anne's family and her Mom asked that we speak to her art classes about being "professional artists". Ugh. It was pretty painless, despite operating on only 2 hours of sleep due to our 8am flight - which meant getting to JFK at 6, which meant getting up at 5, and we didn't pack until 2am, yadda yadda yadda. The kids didn't have much to say, but they pretty much never do at that age. I was the same way from what I recall.
  
  Just physically being in a high school was weird enough in itself. I am one of those people who is still haunted by dreams of being back in high school and it's exam day and I skipped the whole semester and now I'll never graduate. I would assume such dreams are just a metaphor for current insecurities, but man do these dreams suck. At least they always finish with a huge sigh of awakened relief, being thankful for the fact that I will never have to take a test again as long as I live.
  
  By far the best part of the visit was our lunch, which took place in the elusive and mysterious teachers' lounge, a place few students have dared to tread since the very invention of teachers' lounges. I, for one, always pictured them as drab, smoke-filled rooms lined with ugly olive green couches, filled with bitter cantankerous teachers complaining about the hellions in their charge. This teachers' lounge was simply a plain empty room adjacent to the lunch room, with 2 lunchroom tables in the center. No ashtrays in sight.
  
  There were also no other teachers present. However, we were joined by two of the lunch ladies. These lunch ladies looked...well...they looked exactly like lunch ladies. There must be some lunch lady mold somewhere, because all of them seem to have the same weeble-esque build, the same glasses, the hairnet, the same apron, etc These two were no exception. They were very pleasant, and I immediately struck up a conversation, which I have edited below.
  
  Lunchlady #1: So, you guys are from New York City, huh? That must be fun.
  
  Me: Yeah, it's a great place to live.
  
  LL#1: You must have lots and lots of friends too. You must run in to people from all over there, huh?
  
  Me: Yeah, I guess. It's a big place.
  
  LL#1: Yeah my son used to live there. He was constantly running in to people he knew from everywhere. He had tons of friends. That was before he got shot. But he just knew everybody.
  
  Me: Did you say he got shot?
  
  LL#1: Yes, he was shot point blank in the chest for no reason at all. He's fine now, though, so it's no big deal.
  
  Me; Wow. He sounds lucky to be alive. You must be grateful.
  
  LL#1: Oh, he's fine. Still, he just knew tons of people down there. You know what they say...the sixth degree theory. Do you know about the sixth degree theory?
  
  Me: Yeah I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about.
  
  LL#1: The sixth degree theory tells us that every sixth person you meet you will have a connection with.
  
  LunchLady #2: Yeah I've heard of that.
  
  Me: Uhm...actually...if you're talking about six degrees of separation, my understanding is that it is basically saying that between you and any person on the planet, there are a maximum number of six people who know each other which connect you to that random person, by association.
  
  LL#1: No. It's every sixth person you meet, you have a spiritual connection with.
  
  Me: Uhm...OK.
  
  LL#1: Do you also know about the hundredth monkey theory?
  
  Me: Do tell!
  
  LL#1: The hundredth monkey theory is that if you give a hundred monkeys a task to do, ninety-nine of them will do it wrong, but the hundredth will do it right, so we have to find that hundredth monkey, and follow him.
  
  Me: Hmmm. Interesting theory.
  
  LL#2: That makes sense to me.
  
  Me: Hundredth monkey. Sure. Makes perfect sense.
  
  LL#1: So the thing is to find these special monkeys, and follow them.
  
  Me: Gotcha.
  
  At this point Lunch Lady #1 exits, and we are left with only Lunchlady #2.
  
  LL#2: So, I hear you do cartoons on TV?
  
  Me: Well, not really, I do animation for television. It's kind of like cartoons.
  
  LL#2: Yes. Cartoons. I love cartoons.
  
  Me: Uhm...yeah. Cartoons are great.
  
  LL#2: Sometimes I see cartoons just in every day life. Like, just then, when she (LL#1) was speaking, I looked at her, and for a split second, I saw a cartoon.
  
  Me: you SEE cartoons. Like now, in this room?
  
  LL#2: Oh sure. Do YOU see cartoons?
  
  Me: Uhm...no...can't say that I do.
  
  LL#2: Why do you think I see cartoons?
  
  Me: Uhm...
  
  LL#2: What is it that you cartoon guys are doing to me that makes me see cartoons?
  
  I didn't want to be rude, so I made up an answer.
  
  Me: Well, cartoons are usually made up of anywhere from twelve to thirty frames per second. Sometimes cartoonist throw in a single frame, something weird, just as an inside joke to their friends. They are hard for the human eye to see, but your subconscious can register them. Perhaps you are seeing some of these hidden frames after you watch cartoons.
  
  LL#2: Is that right? I knew it was something. And people think I'M crazy!
  
  Me: Uhm...yeah.
  
  
  
• NEW MIX OF MINE NOW UPLOADED AT DJsANONYMOUS.ORG
  
  My boy Alex Moulton put up this site a few months back. Alex is the President and Creative Director of EXPANSION TEAM, a cool collection of DJs and music producers that create music for television. He is also a DJ himself, as well as being a director and editor and excellent lover of women. A renaissance man if there ever was one. On this particular website, Alex is simply taking good DJ mixes and posting them online, with a tiny bit of info about the DJ and a link to their site. He's been getting tons of hits, and tons of mixes from DJs around the world. Musical genres range all over the place, but so far all of them have been pretty cool.
  
  My mix ("Wicky Wacky") was one of the first mixes he posted. I recently made another one for him ("Brainfreeze") that is pretty different from any other mix on my site. It's a collection of a bunch of weird records that I have been accumulating over the past year. Some mid-tempo house stuff. Some electro/dirty-disco type stuff. Some borderline techno stuff. Basically, records that just didn't seem to fit on any of the deep house mixes I often make. Here's the playlist:
  
  Alif Tree - Forgotten PLaces (Felix Laband remix)
  Lindstrom and Prins Thomas - Valerenga Blues And Disco Combo-Ballerina
  Idjut Boys featuring Rune Lindbaek - Laisn (Kalabrese Remix)
  Franz Ferdinand - Outsiders (Isolee remix)
  Dirty 30 - Rip It Off
  Lindstrom and Christabelle - Music In My Mind (DJ Harvey remix)
  Mr. Fingers - Mysteries of Love (dub)
  Popular Computer - I Can't Forget You
  Gorillaz - Dare (DFA Remix)
  Justin Martin - Cicada (Pedro DeLaFaydro birth mix)
  Chicken Lips - White Dwarf (Juan Maclean remix)
  Carl Craig - Brainfreeze
  Satoshie Tomiie - Glow
  
  Here's the link:
  DJs ANONYMOUS.ORG
  
• LIST OF THINGS THAT REALLY BUG ME
  
  The following is a list of things, in no particular order, that bug the shit out of me. These things bug me to such an extent that I think I might be losing it:
  
  UNATTENTIVE BARTENDERS
  TVs in bars that are unknowingly just sitting idle on some DVD menu page for what seems like hours. This is often right after the bartender put the DVD in. How can you make a conscious decision to play a DVD, then fail to notice that it never even began playing? How do you even get dressed in the morning with an attention span that limited?
  
  TRASHCANS WITH FEET
  Little trashcans with foot-pedals that open them. I never know how hard to step, so I end up doing this really tenuous gradual pressing, to minimize the dreaded "lid-snap-back" of an over-zealous stepping. Can't we get some standards here?
  
  THOSE CONFOUNDED PLUGS AND WALL SOCKETS
  Whenever I insert a plug in to a wall-socket, it is invariably the wrong rotation, so that the fat prong is going in the smaller hole. Sure, I could examine the plug and socket thoroughly before I insert, but it's 2006, who the hell has time for that? Plus, I figure I have a 50/50 shot, right? Yet, I swear my lifetime record at sticking a plug in to a wall on the first try is at about 15%. This goes down under the paranoid delusional "why me, Vishnu" category.
  
  PUDDLES DE MUERTE
  That little ice cold puddle of stagnant water that sits on the lid of the shampoo. How on earth does it get so cold? And why aren't all lids made slightly convex to avoid such nasty chilling pools of liquid death?
  
  FORKED TONGUES
  When you all of a sudden, for no reason whatsoever, get a little cut on the end of your tongue. How in the hell does this happen anway? I blame organized religion.
  
  FIT DEEZ NUTZ
  Whilst putting a fitted bottom sheet on a mattress, I invariably choose the wrong end, even when I go against my visual instincts, it's still ALWAYS wrong. Shouldn't somebody mark these things? Like when your mom wrote a big L and R on your shoes. Yeah, just like that.
  
  IT'S RAINING CRUMBS, HALLELUJAH
  When waiters put a basket of bread on the table but no little dish for you to put the bread in and/or eat the bread over. So you slap some butter on the roll, then take a big bite, and an avalanche of crumbs explodes on to the table directly in front of you, making you look like some kind of crumbum slob. You only have three options:
  1) sweep the crumbs on to the floor, incurring looks of disgust from nearby diners
  2) Sweep the crumbs on to the napkin in your lap, getting you covered in crumbs
  3) Sweep the crumbs in to your hand, and dump them back in the bread basket, preferably beneath the remaining as-yet-uneaten rolls.
  Either way, I feel like I am somehow doing the waiter’s job, and a small dish would avoid this entire incident. That’s right, I called it an incident.
  
  GOTH OR NO GOTH, YOUR TASTE IN MOVIES SUCKS ASS
  People who really like the movie THE CROW, and dress up as that stupid loser every Halloween.
  Get over it.
  That movie is gay.
  
  I HAVE GLASS SHINS
  Whenever I walk between two parked cars, I have an irrational fear of one of the cars lurching forward/backward in to the other, smashing my shins to smithereens. So much so that I am considering taking a running start and executing large ballet-esque leaps over the chasm to avoid potential catastrophe.
  
  TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD...
  People who put the toilet paper on upside down. Does this really need to be explained? An upside down roll of TP has the end of the TP hanging off the back of the roll. A correctly installed roll of TP has the end hanging off the front of the roll.
  
  Not only does the latter put the end closer to the user, but it also avoids unnecessary unraveling of the roll. One can jerk on a correctly installed roll of TP and control the amount of unfurling TP, stopping the rotation of the roll precisely at the moment the desired amount of TP has accumulated in one's hand. Yet, a jerk on an improperly installed roll will result in a long, cascading stream of wildly-out-of-control TP, reaching down to the floor and beyond, all before the user can stop it. This is common sense here, people.
  
  DEATH TO ALL TOOTHBRUSH ENGINEERS
  The people at the toothbrush factory that make these space-agey sci-fi-lookin' toothbrushes that don't fit in to the ceramic toothbrush holder already installed in your bathroom. This shit isn't cute, people. If we were supposed to stop using the ceramic toothbrush holders, nobody ever sent me the memo. Would we let McDonald's get away with redesigning a cup that didn't fit in to your car's cup-holder? Think about it.
  
  TAILS BE DAMNED
  Restaurants chefs, and all cooks for that matter, who feel compelled to leave the tails of shrimp on, requiring the eater to either soil his/her hands in the removal process, or annoyingly manipulate knife and fork for the same result. It's 2006 for the love of God. We are not idiots. We know it's shrimp. We don't need the tails left on to prove it to us. For the love of criminy, let's move forward, shall we?
  
  PANTALONES NO TRABAJAR
  Pants that have pockets that completely empty out the minute you sit down. Who is the fashion genius that came up with these, and what is their appropriate punishment in Hell? Women don’t seem to use pockets, so this doesn’t apply to their pants. As for the rest of us: we are men. We don’t carry a purse. We NEED pockets. And usually we do not like to lose things like house keys and cell phones and wallets. Don’t pants factories have yellow pants testing dummies that are sitting up and down all day? When I am president, they sure as hell will.
  
  THE GREAT SHOE CONSPIRACY
  And last but not least: Only my right shoe ever comes untied. What does this mean?
  
  
  
  
• 11/28/06 - MEXICAN WEDDINGS KICK ASS
  
  Been traveling a bit too much as of late. First Jamaica for the bachelor party, then Mexico two weeks later for the follow-up wedding, then exotic Buffalo, New York for Thanksgiving. It's been wonderful and I am truly lucky to have the time to travel, but I am sick to death of airplane food and people disturbing my nap to give me a packet of pretzels (Gee thanks, scary lady!).
  
  The wedding was mad fun. Easy and low-key. Great weather. Great crowd. Tear-jerking, insanely eloquent declarations of love from the bride and groom.
  
  The Uruguayan/Australian/American/British wedding was a nice culture clash that included a Mariachi band and a traditional Jewish Hora dance in which both the bride and groom were almost decapitated by low-hanging ceiling fans. Serge caught a speed knot on his shaved head, but luckily there was only minimal blood loss.
  
  Burning Man/Oprah veteran Courtney Martin introduced us all to the world of adult, un-ironic hoola-hooping (who knew?). I made a CD for the wedding which went over well (listen to it in the music section). Somehow "Sexy Back" came on right as the hoola-hoop contest was jumping off, so I felt like I had done something right. And if you hate on JT I simply got no time for you. As overplayed as that track has become, it is a fucking dancefloor wonder.
  
  Copious amounts of Don Julio tequila with sangrita chaser were consumed. Stupidly fantatsic fish tacos. Oceans of guacamole. Local schwag. When in Rome...
  
  And finally, NY taco tycoon Jesse Vendley learned that, lo and behold, there is, in fact, a downside to getting a huge, albeit temporary, henna tattoo of a bloated skull and crossbones on your neck.
  
  Good times.
  
  
• HIP HOP NON STOP COLLECTING GHETTO PROPS
  
  The site has gotten a few lil' mentions on some other blogs, which is mad cool and embarassingly exciting for a newbie blogger like myself. I am just now digging in to the whole blogging thing and beginning to navigate the waters. I have a feeling bragging about your own site getting mentioned may be totally lame, but fuck it - I'm like Sally Field up in this piece.
  
  CATCHDUBS A very no-bullshit blog from a fellow Brooklyn DJ/Producer that keeps it short and sweet and to the point. Lots of info on where to catch this dude spinning, plus mad links and some real in-the-know 411 about underground releases and downloads. Hotness.
  
  33JONES This cat was kind enough to recommend my "Dubtitled Mixtape". It's probably my mostest favoritest of all my hip hop mixtapes, so I am glad to hear peeps are feeling it. 33Jones is a hop hop culture blog that gets deep, very deep, with mad info, industry news, gossip, drama, links, and some hilarious commentary. The recording of a Bklyn cat Star69-ing his girl's man on the side had me trippin' like Missy and Total.
  
  HURT YOU BAD This dude bigged up the old On The Go Comics. This site is currently under-reconstruction from what I can tell, so I don't really know how they get down just yet. Keep checking for the re-up in a few.
  
  THAT GOOD GOOD And last but mos definitely not least is my man my mellow, my brother from another mother, my main shit stain: RIO VALLEDOR and his blog THAT GOOD GOOD. Rio is one of my oldest friends in NY. We went to Pratt together and were awkward members of the "handful of white dudes down with Hip Hop" club. Almost hard to imagine such a club ever had an exclusive membership, but this was 1987 and the dam hadn't broken yet.
  
  Aside from his architectural hand/mind/space skillz, he is a fellow On The Go alum and one of my favorite writers of the non-graffiti kind. This kid put the SH in SHTYLE. He's Hip Hop's answer to James Joyce, putting layer upon layer of reference, double entendre, and nudge nudge/wink wink/feel me dog type puzzles in every sentence. Break out the Moet, listen to the poet, and peep his blog.
  
  
• BREAKING NEWS: VINTAGE MR. MAGIC TAPE UPLOADED TO THE MUSIC SECTION
  
  The mixes page has been getting good response from my Shelter and DHP family, as well as m