January 2006 Archives

If you have never been there, or if you do not live in Nueva York, you really must take a look at the Movida website, it is so amazing, I can't even believe it exists. I've only ever been there for Brazilian night, so in the context of the new jack, shit will be like a time machine, and Cosmo is making it happen. (dude, what's up with the schoolgirl dancers though.)

As someone who is fascinated by those fake ocean-scene lightboxes they sell in times square--you know the ones, they resemble a window open to the beach or the nyc skyline, and they play a "bubbling brook" sound and the light ripples across the ocean crests, and they're sometimes adorned with arbitrarily placed dolphins--as someone who is fascinated by those lightboxes, the culture around them and the reasons people purchase them, Movida appeals to me very much. It appeals to every one of my theatrical impulses. I am going to wear a fuckload of eyeliner.

Tomorrow is thursday nite and i have just been alerted: Cosmo Baker is spinning NEW JACK Swing/'90s r&B... WHA.... at *Movida* in the West Village... which is decorated like an '80s cruise ship, unironically, railings and mirrors spitshined, everywhere you look is either a painted-on palm tree, or your own reflection, in glossy x900 dpi. Al B. Sure wrote songs specifically for this club. Seriously, look in the liner notes of the "ooh this love is so" limited edition maxi-single flexidisc (croatian version), it says :"for movida." Email if you wanna
meet up, oh, p.s. IT IS FREE!

ALSO, finally the Rub dudes are returning w/dj a-trak ("kanye west's dj" as the pr bonerz alert) to southpaw, bklyn five mere blks from chez shep, on Feb 4, after-/pre-party at my place, and as an added bonus MAJOR HOMIE, the crispiest BEN "TUESDAY" FASMAN shall have flown in from chi-boogie to grace us with his extraordinarily fly presence. miss it and yr dead.

FEENIN,
JSHEPHERD!

MEGA LOVE AND CONGRATULATIONS TO DAN AND LUPINE AND DOT (Dorothy Mahalia!), NEW TO THE WORLD AND ALREADY THE CUTEST BABY BEAR

yo, because i was born in 1847 and have no fucking idea how to either post mp3s or work the VCR, our mans and nem, quick-witted and totally offering to hook me up with Freeway!, has graciously posted my future husband Ne-Yo's "The Plan," link above, for your listening enjoyment. The song is basically like, "We are going to meet at the club, take it to the house like Trick and Trina, 'hang with the Dolphins,' then go back to the club." That is the plan. His hook? He has a "cleaner whip" than all those other dudes. Muy importante, you do not want to be stepping on trash when you get into the whip, cause you are a lady. "Head game insane." Nope, ain't nothin wrong with a little bump and grind. The erotic power play is incredibly nuanced, subtle, and it has 85% to do with Ne-Yo's delivery. The same words from the mouth of a lesser talent might sound trashier, or imply a singular interest in the dude's own desires--it's like Ne-Yo makes space for mutuality, even while taking the reigns.

Once again, the natural dirty intent is such great counter-sentiment to the previously determined MR AMERICA dude has straight franchised. I mean, this a fellow who wrote a song about how, when his girl asks him to make it official, he is going to be "the happiest man in the world." next to ne-yo, even anthony hamilton, and ginuwine at his most wedding-reception'd sound kinda like half-steppers. Ne-Yo sounds like he knows having it on lock now doesn't necessarily mean you'll have it on lock tomorrow. And that's hot.

yo, because i was born in 1847 and have no fucking idea how to either post mp3s or work the VCR, our mans and nem, quick-witted and totally offering to hook me up with Freeway!, has graciously posted my future husband Ne-Yo's "The Plan," link above, for your listening enjoyment. The song is basically like, "We are going to meet at the club, take it to the house like Trick and Trina, 'hang with the Dolphins,' then go back to the club." That is the plan. His hook? He has a "cleaner whip" than all those other dudes. Muy importante, you do not want to be stepping on trash when you get into the whip, cause you are a lady. "Head game insane." Nope, ain't nothin wrong with a little bump and grind. The erotic power play is incredibly nuanced, subtle, and it has 85% to do with Ne-Yo's delivery. The same words from the mouth of a lesser talent might sound trashier, or imply a singular interest in the dude's own desires--it's like Ne-Yo makes space for mutuality, even while taking the reigns.

Once again, the natural dirty intent is such great counter-sentiment to the previously determined MR AMERICA dude has straight franchised. I mean, this a fellow who wrote a song about how, when his girl asks him to make it official, he is going to be "the happiest man in the world." next to ne-yo, even anthony hamilton, and ginuwine at his most wedding-reception'd sound kinda like half-steppers. Ne-Yo sounds like he knows having it on lock now doesn't necessarily mean you'll have it on lock tomorrow. And that's hot.

oh man, i tried to resist linking to it, cause i know i'm always going on about nick sylvester's endless streams of hilarity, but i keep reloading the page to re-read the line about "fucking a bag of gay eucharist." And that closing kicker, mais oui!

Nick is like, the andres serrano of the village voice blogspot. Colonel Ratzinger, married to the old ways, is currently devising a pox.

Nice counterpoint to our maniacally anti-choice president, the shit going down in haiti, the impending alito confirmation, exorcisms in mexico, et cetera ad nauseum.

Tonite, after I finish work-meetings, revisions to my Soul and Emailing You Back, night six in the house Spike Lee Commemorative Viewfest 2006 shall commence. It began on MLK day, w/the excellent biopic Malcolm X, and has since included Crooklyn (cried), 25th hour (WHOA--cried--more on that later), Jungle Fever (didn't cry, but that movie, so immediate, with its open dialogue and laser-eye hones the eff in. and not just on the problems and possible [often cynical] motivations for this particlar romance, btwn a black man and an italian woman, their lust underpinned by racial curiosity--but also on affirmative action, workplace sex, familial misogyny, traditional gender friction, themes of crack, class and God--the film IS the early '90s, in all its itchy fitfulness--also might be his broadest, most fleshed out work of sociology and yet it's so excellent because he keeps no distance between said themes and Lee) (I have seen this before but i didn't pick up on it cause it came out when i was like, you know, 12 or some shit.) (I was a child prodigy, indeed, but my mind was not yet that mature).

This viewfest shall include all of 'em, all the Spike Lee films, 'cept maybe Do the Right Thing, which i could probably recite to you now by heart, so fierce was my youth (?) idolization of Rosie "Fly Girl Choreographer" Perez, and School Daze, which I don't think I've actually seen, ever, but is presently rented or stolen from every videodega within walking distance from my block, so it must be good.

This is all part of my continuing marriage to Brooklyn. Brooklyn, the city I adore. Where I know it's not fake, not a marriage of convenience or codependence, because BKLYN doesn't give you a honeymoon. Brooklyn catapults you into year 27 of your union the moment your lips meet. The vows were over long before you ever made your first trip to the bodega.

Speaking of which: what i'm really in love with is that hand-painted bodega sign, the one in all of Spike Lee's movies, the yellow one with the palm trees and the block letters. If you live here and you've seen more than one Spike Lee "joint" you know what I mean. I keep thinking it's the exact same bodega by my apartment, but it's not, there are a million that look just like it, banana yellow, palm trees,lettering in a brown and orange gradient. SODA SNACKS CIGARETTES NEWSPAPERS. Or DELI, maybe, or PRODUCTOS LATINOS. If anyone knows the story behind that bodega sign, the one in the movie, where it's located (fort greene for sure, but where? is it the one on fulton near the A?), and why there are so many exactly like it all over South BKLYN (who painted them?) pls email, I am fixated on it, surely there's a story behind it and I want to know it. I like that they're so common, a kind of provincial franchise, a distinction particular to our borough, hopefully to the southerly part of our borough. FT GREENE CLINTON HILL GOWANUS PARK SLOPE BOERUM HILL. They don't have those special bodegas up in Queens, I bet.

Tonight is She hate me--which i've never seen but is supposed to be as incoherent and meandering as the preceding paragraphs. I rented it from the video store in the building where Sasha grew up, the selfsame video store. Mom and pop, you can tell they haven't changed the carpet since then. I don't think they've alphabetized their shelves, either, since Sasha lived there.

Zero organization. Brooklyn charm.

I know this blogggpost is incoherent and meandering, and rambling and not crafted, I'm rushing to finish to watch the movie and also, fully typing without my glasses, even though i'm legally blind. JSHEP CHARM!

CnP HQ is all aflutter cuz our mans and nem emailed an mp3 of Fave R&B prodigy/future baby-dad? Ne-Yo singing nasty-nasty nastiness over 50 Cent's "Get in My Car," during which Young details exactly what goes down when you get with him. WHUH. I know my feelings on Ne-Yo may affect my reaction to the song, but there's some tension and steamy hotness on there not alluded to on squeaky-clean "Mr. America" eem-offerings like "Stay" (a song he wrote not about a girl, but about HIS LOVE FOR SONGWRITING) and "that breakup song about hearing too many sad songs on the radio whose title currently escapes me, and whose weird karaoke video is a big OTT cocaine metaphor (why else is the girlfriend arrested?)." Both of which are songs I love, but this is a whole other dirty facet to dude that we'll hopefully hear more of IN THE NEAR FUTURE. Also, pay attention to Ne-Yo's fashion, his style is burgeoning, even whilst casually lamping he looks crispy. Guess Def Jam clothing allowance helps, but.

Check blog LOST for Papi Babylon's rundown on Weird Beard America. Full disclosure: I used to be really into beards on dudes, I thought they looked professorial, and obviously "professor" is the most attractive occupation. But then the fake hippies went and fucked it up. One thing that would revitalize my interest: Ne-Yo, bearded, giving a lecture.

Berlin: the seventh borough. I love reading interviews with Kevin, she is so focused and I admire her specificity and forethought, as an artist and a human. However, this ende part got me steamed:

Pitchfork: I feel like it's difficult for women who are smart to fall in love without realizing that they have to give up a little bit of their sense of humor, or ignore the irony of it. Maybe your intelligence almost gets in the way. I'm thinking of your line, in "Suspended In Love", where you say, "I even acted like a girl."
Blechdom: That's what I mean. "I wore makeup one day." "And I wore a dress one day. I was submissive one day." It's more like saying, "I was submissive, but not to you. You missed it. Your one chance to see maybe what it would have been like in an old-fashioned world." I don't know.
Pitchfork: Do you find those things-- being in love, being smart, being a girl-- incompatible?
Blechdom: I think...yeah, it's hard. Fuck it. It's hard.

I am wicked bummed on that shit: I am very frustrated by the limitations we women self-impose. Sex and femininity and feminism are all topics the third-wave never dealt with properly, never reconciled (tho they should be reconciled on an individual basis, to be sure) but saying you can't be in love, smart, and "girly" all at once is a way of setting barriers for oneself, and a way of letting yr boyf off the hook for... what, being threatened by smart women? Not giving you the space to flourish? I don't know. I do think it's dangerous to seperate love/relationships from humor, feminism from femmeness, and especially "girlishness" from intelligence! Or to further the idea that cool, smart women have to "shrink to fit" (phrase courtesy Al Burian) the bounds of our relationships--that we do not deserve relationships in which we can grow and be our best, fullest, smartest most ambitious selves... or that we have to settle. Those ideas foster reactions like Maureen Dowd's, the rigid and WRONG notion that intelligent women cannot live a multiplicity of identities--which, I think, drives some women away from feminism.

I am going to email Kevin and ask her what she meant.

Finally, I will now die happy: A Gabe, a Ghost, a Sea Lion.

For an interlude, they made cat and dog fighting sounds: barking and mewling interpreted by a little hollow-bottom drum and the squealing mouth of the violin player, respectively. This occurred after several seconds of cacophony, a great clamor of drums, guitar, piano, Apple laptop, lap-steel stringed guitar device, alto saxophone, with its lovely low baying. After which the players, eight of them or nine if you count the computer, sang loud in the same style of loud-sanging one might expect from a drunken bachelor party in 1632 Ireland, or from the Pirates of Penzance—all shifty harmonizing and shambling cameraderie.

And now back to their name, which I still find unfortunate. Their name, it is Stars Like Fleas. I am mostly able to forgive this because they are one of my favorite New York bands, and perhaps there is some significance I do not know. They are a free jazz/ post-form band of melody makers, they seem very serious, serious meaning they have possibly studied their instruments in some formal capacity. It's like the Picasso effect--one must learn to draw simple figures in order to become a brilliant cubist. nah mean. I do not know if this is true, if they have studied formally, but their drummer is as good as any in a John Zorn docudrama. And yet they are not overbearing or overly stoic, their ease and onstage familiarity feels like being invited to the family dinner, with its rambunctious love and long-running jokes. Like someone might throw a spaghetti at you to see if it sticks. Like high art/populist in harmonium. I will have to see them more to put them in historical context, other than the context of "making me happy"

And here is a bit of rage (a thread of rage dangling from a very large loom of it): the opener. It will always amaze me that some of the most inoffensive bands--bands who rely heavily on PATIENT LOOPING and a tirade of crescendo/decrescendo--bands that make beauty for the sake of itself-- who sustain two notes on melodica for a whole minute until they very gingerly roll out the next drone, all on your life's time—I have one lifetime!!--and yeah, I know all about deep listening, dog, so do not front--it is these bands whose fans are prepared to GO TO THE FUCKING MAT w.r.t. audience members who are not sufficiently reverent and solemn while said bands are playing—even though the show is in a fucking bar.

POINT: Somewhere by song two, a man at the back screamed at the audience, to SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!!, viciously, as though he would slice open the belly of any person infringing on his enjoyment of this aggressively relaxing, atmospheric music. He shouted this just as the guest cellist was plucking her bow along the strings, producing a sound that mimicked the gentle cries of the bottlenose dolphin.

(Full disclosure: I have listened to and possibly enjoyed the albums of this opening band, charles atlas. i definitely, mos mfing definitely do not need to be watching them play live, ever. & the guest cellist, greta cohn of cursive/goodlife/bright eyes, was actually the best part of the show, with her excellent technique and actual melodies.)

Kanye West on that one Common track off Be: "God don't ever give me nothing I can't handle/ So please don't ever give me records I can't sample/ So I can vaca where there ain't no channels/ it's quite okay for a gangster to wear sandals."

Proof that Harvard doesn't ONLY churn out riff raff and race-war instigators: GOOD JOB TO HUA on a satisfyingly lucid, insightful essay on crack cocaine, in context. ("New York may have celebrated its 17th consecutive year of declining crime rates," he writes, finely, "but there is still an odd fixation with broken windows and restless summers.")

Meanwhile, back in Portland, Witty Pug Herder and Noted Former Co-Pilot Ezra Ace Caraeff seeks Gallagher, finds Metallagher. IS ANYONE SURPRISED THEY'RE FROM MINNEAPOLIS?! And is there a Hold Steady song about them yet?

Michelle Bachelet, socialist pediatrician, former political prisoner under Pinochet, Chile's first woman president!

Despite, or perhaps because of, the Alito nomination and a veritable three lifetimes of GW Bush, 2006 is predicted to be the Year of the Woman redux in America, with record numbers of women running for open seats in Congress and in local governments. (The last Year of the Woman was 1992, when record numbers of women were *elected* to all tiers of local and national government, a development sparked in part by 12 dismal yrs of Reagan-Bush rule--not to mention another Supreme Court hearing, that of Clarence Thomas, and of course the testimony of a lady you betta know as the solid lady MS. Professor Anita Hill.)

ANYWAY I am pulling for the Year of the Woman as a global d, what with Liberia's coolest-ever Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (aka Africa's first elected female head of state), first woman chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, and Tarja Halonen of Finland (maybe). They're all solid social liberals (social liberalism being one thing what we rep wit round here), but here's a quote from venerable Chilean communist leader Gladys Marin, who passed away March 6, 2005, explaining why even mere representation is important:
"Women involved in politics are very exposed to the conservative, male environment we live in... women are banned from the world of politics. If a woman excels in it, people say she is masculine or she is the lover of an entire leadership."

And SPEAKING OF HEROES! Happy MLK Day. Here's a timely article about the FBI wiretapping of the good doctor. And this Olu Dara/Richie Havens celebration at BB King's seems terrific, if you are rich and live in NY. If you are not rich and live in BK, BAM is having a free day of celebration for the 20th yr in a row, starting at 10:30 am, starring Gwen Ifill from the Jim Lehrer Newshour AND Dr. Carolyn Goodman and Fannie Lee Cheney, mothers of Andrew Goodman and James Cheney, young Civil Rights workers who were murdered by the KKK while working on 1964 Mississippi Summer Project.

Personal aside: My crackpot theorizin' made a debut on the definitive Lost blog! Thank you Monsieur Babylon, especially for CROWNING ME "THE GRIFF" (SANS GRIFF's [SINCe-rENOUNCED] ANTI-SEMITIC RANTS, PLEASE)

I am now the proud owner of a pair of cadet-blue gym shorts autographed on the ass by none other than FATMAN SCOOP. They read:
"To: Julianne!
I'm in your pants!
Fatman Scoop"

They were procured yesterday by my amazing roommate Mo, after she met Scoop at the Adidas store in SoHo. She said he was very soft-spoken (yes, soft-spoken--I asked her to confirm this fact twice before I reported it), and that "He wasn't all that fat," or at least slimmer than he looked "on the BET Awards." When she told him to sign the booty of the gym shorts, he asked, "I'm not going to get in trouble with her boyfriend, am I?" Mo responded, "No, I think it'll be okay."
SCOOP!!

IN NY at least: the JSHEP/JHOVA "Suicide Girls SIX-PAGE EXPOSE" collabo in SPIN magazine, February issue, The Strokes on the cover, myself all lipsticked-up and coy-muggin' on contributor's page. Get excited.
Stats
Layout: hot shade of pink, just like we like it
Punny Title: Nude Awakening
Subtitle: $3,412 Phone Bill

BRITT B! CHECK YR equitableservitude EMAIL! TIMELY INFO AWAITS YOU!

I know two britts! cool

SPECIAL TO Britt C: check yr work email! TIMELY INFO RESIDES THERE

over and out

Or rather, not picking up the phone. Basically, all I can do right now is listen to the Alito hearings and cry. US Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-NY (the first Jewish Congresswoman voted in), just slayed me with her tale of being 14 in 1981 and feeling thrilled that a woman would be a Supreme Court Justice.

People! It's not gonna happen, but write/call your Democratic senator and request a filibuster, anyway! NEVER GIVE UP HOPE.

Brian Foote, friend de Nudge et mon everlasting Portland/Chicago electronic dance music connection, has concocted a mix for download. Brilliantly titled MALL BANGS MEETS THE UNDERCUT. GO BRIAN! You can get it at his label outward music
here is some of the tracklist from the middle:

kelis _ trick me _ tiefschwarz remix
da brat _ boom _ tommie sunshine remix
simian mobile disco _ click
cass & morgan _ i gotta thang [uh huh]
poni hoax _budapest _ joakim italo dub
tiga _you gonna want me _ jesper dahlback remix
konrad black _ medusa smile [don't look back]

WOW!

these are our rights to an abortion, slippin slippin slippin away

At least we still have Schumer's weirdly lo-fi website and this photo of him serving in the IT'S ACADEMIC! high school trivia competition.

CONFIRMATION HEARINGS IN SUMMARY:
REPUBLICAN: Judge Alito, some of my colleagues have referred to you as "not awesome." But I think you are awesome. Can you tell me if you agree with the assertion that you are not awesome?
ALITO: Senator, I wholeheartedly disagree with the assertion that I am not awesome, in fact I have stated clearly before that I do think I am so awesome.
REPUBLICAN: That is RIGHT! THat's the RIGHT ANSWER! GOOD JOB, YOU ARE INDEED AWESOME! SO AWESOME! YEAH! PASS THE DORITOS!

arlen specter calls email "computer letters."

I still think we're gonna have a civil war, as Ted Kennedy just sonned Arlen Specter, then Arlen pulled this inane paternalist act: "Don't tell me what I received in the mail." Sorry, pops. Then Grassley makes a football analogy. No one has compared the proceedings to basketball to date, but I'm at least pulling for Feinstein to drop "gaslighting" sometime after the break.

here's "THE LETTER/NO LETTER"

Does anyone else think it's rich that a posse of 200-year-old conservative Southern white men are lauding Alito's fair treatment of women and people of colour?

I love Eastern Europe, particularly love Eastern European classical composers, like Bartok, Dvorak and Gyorgy Kurtag. They are my favorite composers, after Shostakovich and *maybe* Scriabin.

My extraordinary roommate Mo and I just made a deal to throw a walkup-eviscerating party the second either 1. Rove gets indicted or 2. Bush or Cheney gets the ouster. This is one thing I can guarantee, cuz we shook on it. When it happens, we are making a vatful of coquito and dancing til we are dogpiled from exhaustion. You are invited, unless you are a fistfighter or a douchebag.

Also, as I just emailed to Kyle, the Republicans on the senate judiciary might well be giving Alito a pedicure and calling him "papi." It's all so fucking predictable!

who else w/ "freedom: lifeschedule" wants to go see bela tarr's seven-hour film with me at moma this week? i know it sounds tedious, but another of his films werckmeister harmonies is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen, stark yet imaginative political allegory, drawn from Tarr's experience living in Hungary under Communist dictatorship, and shot in graphite shades of black and white so every scene is vivid and textured like a charcoal drawing.

if it sucks we can bounce. come on, i will provide the junior mints.

senator grassley: "i understand america"

= QUE? holy crap.

"THE PRESIDENT IS NOT A KING.. THE COURT IS NOT A LEGISLATURE... AND THE PEOPLE ARE NOT SUBJECTS."
-Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY

THE MAN DOES NOT FLINCH. i am proud to jog by the brownstone.

I am also hopeful when dictatorship/monarchy language enters the discourse of the mainstream, in particular with this crop'o Dems. It makes me feel slightly less extremist (aka alone). And optimistic for change and consequences.

Russell Feingold right now is ruling my world; in the Alito hearings, he basically just berated the president for his "unilateral"/dictatorial rule. watch it live on the internoid here

I for one am feeling extremely proud (and simultaneously terrified); some of these folks (Feinstein!) are speaking well and with dignity. This is also inspiring my roommate to sing tunes from Les Mis.

Schumer's tie is a really nice, art deco lattice pattern.

ADDENDUM: IT'S 'TWEEN PROCEEDINGS BANTER, and I think I just heard the NEXTEL CHIRP IN THE INTERMISSION?! WHO ON THE SENATE JUDICIARY GETS WITH BOOST MOBILE PAY-to-PLAY?! The obvious choice is Ted Kennedy, but I'm gonna go with Herb Kohl, cause his opening monologue was so impressive.

I just watched Dogville starring Nicole Kidman, on the advice of Jessica and her therapist. It actualizes your pain-fantasies of cracking loco and machine-gunning everyone who ever treated you like shit. Almost like a baptism. Highly recommended.

(Also redeems Lars von Trier's cynical character-pantheon of fragile/tragic martyr-women who have no reprieve from the insistant press of pain. Although in certain ways, Dogville was his meanest and most manipulative movie, even if it was an allegory for capitalism/America dans "terror" mindframe/sept 11)

wow
more proof that all the best leaders possess good humor:

An adroit humorist, Marcos brought guffaws from the crowd as he described his rooster's attempts to find love in the barnyard, which always ended in Penguin falling over before he could mate.

"That's O.K.," he said. "This part is rated triple X. It's better you don't hear it."

Schumer has been standing up for what he believes is right, it would be cynical and unnecessarily divisive to say his character is born of political opportunism. *

nytimes editorial on scaryass alito

*Nevertheless, I do not regret *not* approaching him in Prospect Park last week, I was mad sweaty and stanky and he was dressed in a nice suit and lighting a menorah. His daughter came down from their place, too, and he made this really cute dad-joke, about how she was going to get on the mike and sing some songs. She was embarrassed, in the daughter-embarrassment way. Charming insight into the positive family life of the man who, tomorrow, will have a direct hand in shaping THE INDEFINITE FUTURE/NON-FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN WARSTATE, NOT TO MENTION CHOICE, PRIVACY, DEMOCRACY, um what am I forgetting? A direct hand in the filibuster that may slow our slide into Bushian dictatorship? Who knows. Sen. Schumer, D-NY, pls rock that filibuster like we wish you would

JSHEP'S HUSBAND POLL 1/7/2006:
OUT: NAVEEN ANDREWS
IN: SUBCOMANDANTE MARCOS

RIP Comandante Ramona

1/06.
Lady walking actual dog. Street swarming with cops. Bustle down by the bodega. Broad fucking daylight.
"You going down there?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Guns were popping down there four minutes ago."
"Well I live down there."
"Well, maybe stay close to the ground, then."
THANKS FOR THE ADVICE.

12/05.
One day last November, I found myself in a room in the Union Square W, with an editor from High Times magazine, waiting to interview Josh Homme of QOTSA. Homme was otherwise occupied with friend and noted motormouth Elliot Aronow. High Times dude had already interviewed him, but he was just sticking around. While I waited, ate catered jicama (the root of my people) and tried not to puke from secondhand smoke, High Times dude told me, in detail, about his ROCK WALL--the wall of his apartment designated to showcase his no doubt vast collection of rock posters. (In my mind, they are all posters for Big Brother and the Holding Company, but I am probably wrong.) When he was younger, he used to just paste 'em up there, but at some point in his late 20s, he decided that if the rock posters were framed, they would better impress ladies, since framed posters connote an operational level of class and responsibility.

So the other night, considering the fact that my bedroom/office decor is largely defined by a T.I. poster hanging by a strip of packaging tape, Jessica and I discussed ways I could redecorate. I envision the room as a "THEMED ODYSSEY" (in the tradition of "ICE CAVERN," my old room on Mallory Street in Portland), but I do not want to sacrifice any of the fundamental fourteen-ness that makes it, and me, so awesome and special.

I decided one way to achieve this goal is to frame the T.I. poster--not to impress men, per se, but to glean the same feeling of class, responsibility and confidence enjoyed by the editor of High Times magazine. "I'm going to hang my poster above my bed in an ornate frame I will score from the thrift," I said. "Then I will purchase lavendar satin sheets and hang some lace from the wall in an arbitrary fashion. I want my bedroom to scream Apollonia Kotero lives here!"

Soon to enhance my newfound age-appropriate design scheme is the GIANT AALIYAH POSTER Jessica sent me for xmas, not to mention Thoughts, the terrific, thoughtful and SPOT-ON BOOK OF SELF-EMPOWERMENT POETRY/ESSAYS WRITTEN BY TIONNE "T-BOZ" WATKINS. !!!!!!!