June 2007 Archives
Two of my favorite writers have new books out this summer:
Ana Castillo's the Guardians is fiction, about a Mexican immigrant who goes missing between the borders.
Julia Alvarez's Once Upon a Quinceanera is non-fiction, about the transformation of a Mexican ceremony into a huge American mega culture.
I have not yet read either but as writers I recommend both.
That's all for now. It's late and I just got back from the dance class, the "Legally Blonde on Broadway" dance class, which I joined on a whim after strength training. The choreography was based on bending and snapping, and a routine with jumpropes set to Taylor Dayne's bodacious post-freestyle pop single "Tell It to My Heart." I am nearly positive I danced to that when it was new, too, in my red sequined leotard and grotesque tan-tights that were glossed-up to liquid-shiny, and white ballet shoes and crimped hair and vaseline on our teeth so we wouldn't stop smiling during performances, even though we were at like, Denver Nuggets arena or whatever, and everyone was too far away to see our teeth.
If you happen to watch the Taylor Dayne video, please note that all choreographed dances in 1987 ended with a dramatic and sassy stage-walk-off. I am sure there is some reason behind this nationwide movement but too tired to unravel it at this juncture. If you are reading this blog and you are too young to remember that: get your self familiar with my ill 5th grade repertoire.
Just when you thought my shit was all gossip juice and fashion commentary, BOOM! I DROP MY KEYSHIA COLE/MISSY ELLIOTT INTERVIEW / video shoot shit on you. That's the real, what I was saving for the Vibe.
Speaking of which, here's your man.
Gustavo Arellano, you are my hero. Plus the photo heading this article is hilarious: EMBRACE THAT GIANT "MEXICAN" PINATA AND HIS BLUE-ASS EYES - FEEL HIS PAPIER-MACHE MESTIZO POWER! HAHAH.
Loose off the Goose.
Got him on the chase like cranberry juice.
Spent seven hours on the set of a video shoot for my favorite under-30 R&B singer today. There was some notion to get in the shot, to dance or put my hands up at the time when Misdemeanor said it was time to, but I was lacking in pro make-up, short-shorts or a union card, and I am trying to make my first on-cam experience off-cam, anyway, as an up-and-coming oldish (for the biz) choreogenius.
Talked to Keysh. She is tiny, much tinier than I thought she'd be. Eyes dressed in beautiful hot-pink shadow, fake lashes that fanned out like the soft frond off a peacock feather. Her front teeth are small, a physical trait I always find endearing on people, I don't know why. She was all about ladies doing our own thing. It seems the last two-three years have healed her dagger-in-heart gait (I know, I have the tour t-shirt ) and wrought that epiphany moment when you realize you can't play yourself for the sake of a dude - that it is, as ever, about YOU. (Actually, she said so. Her last album was about (points her finger out) her next album will be about (points her finger to her heart).)
Missy is who you think she's gonna be: she just fuckin sparkles like no one you know, but has the same extra-cool-with-jokes air of your best friend (yes she reminded me of Ms. Connie Wohn, for those in the know). She was wearing diamonds and a bathrobe. My management company wants me to tell yall i'm in the bathrobe, this is not how I dress... she said into our little webcam... but I'm not worried about it. And smiled a GAZILLION WATTS. Her drop was like, "IF YOU DONT WATCH MY INTERVIEW, I'm gonna COME TO YA HOUSE AND FIND YA. HOLLA!" A gem, but obviously the persona's just the surface. There was an undercurrent of sweetness to her. Kept thinking about what I know about her childhood - how she was in an abusive situation as a little girl and wrote letters to Michael Jackson, asking him to come rescue her. Can't remember where I read that but it was years back and it stuck.
Missy has the Rihanna bob haircut now and it looks terrific.
Lil Kim looks healthy. This white photographer kept trying to take photos of her leg and gold stiletto heel, and she posed for him against the wall, lifting her foot up, gamely.
More later today. I gotta go to the gym and get my haircut. (Cause it is, as ever, about me. HOLLA!)
Will (code name: stencil) on flagrantly bougie Canadian siestafest Celine Dion as Hillary Clinton's campaign song: "If she fails to win the nomination or loses the general election, this will undoubtedly be why."
DON'T BLAME ME I VOTED FOR "GEORGIA... BUSH."
(I really did, in the write-in ballot for "choose Hillary's campaign song." Even linked to a rapidshare of that shit in case her campaign-song lackeys hadn't heard it. Apparently it wasn't as compelling as THE SUFFOCATING NOSE-VOICED SOMNAMBULISM OF A CERTAIN BILLIONAIRE QUEBECOIS. Ha.)
I can't tell if this is really demonstrative of H-Rod's psyche
Or if it's just a too-perfect representation of the myopic mediocrity we're used to from our out-of-touch lifer politicians: a lesser consequence of our low expectations.
This piece on video-game gold farmers in China is blowing my mind. Maybe it's an old question, but if anyone can, please recommend books about the social/philosophical implications of this advanced level of super surreal life/videogame bleed. ALSO WONDERING ABOUT: the sweatshop implications / economics (disparity, profit) in a really particular leisure industry.
From the piece:
"In farms with daily production quotas, too much time spent dead instead of farming gold can put the worker’s job at risk. And in shops where daily wages are tied to daily harvests, every minute lost to death is money taken from the farmer’s pocket. But there are times when death is more than just an economic setback for a gold farmer, and this was one of them. As Min returned to his corpse — checking to make sure his attacker wasn’t waiting around to fall on him again the moment he resurrected — what hurt more than the death itself was how it happened, or more precisely, what made it happen: another player."
Somehow it is appropriate that known stoner Lil Wayne half-copped the "Tenderoni" melody for his lenient-boyfriend declamation "Prostitute Flange" - a track recently remixed with his recently reunited girlfriend, Trina, for whom the song was allegedly orignally written semi-based on her alleged dalliance with Lil Wayne's alleged gay-lover-slash-father figure, Baby.
I still remember the day I first heard Lil Wayne and Trina were dating, the first time. Jazzbo sent me an email about it. I am really into them getting back, cause there's clearly some other cosmic shit between them. this track being slightly depraved but also totally sincere and beautiful (even tho I think Trina's line about Wayne bein a dirty dog and it not mattering is bullshit). With love, I feel, it's just "whatever works," and if it's real, then work it out. "Three letters: I DO"
Word to Pete Macia, West Coast Family, for making this photoshop, I mean if he did.
(ADDENDUM: CnP ADVOCATES MONOGAMY AND SAFE SEX)
A eulogy. One I know to be true. And truth..
Rayquon Elliott. On Monday morning he was shot and killed outside his apartment building in Far Rockaway, Queens. He was 24 years old. Senseless.
Our new roommates, as depicted above, are stupid. Stupid as in, "I CAN'T FEEL MY FACE." Stupid as in "so cute I think my head will explode even considering it." Mo brought them home last night in two tiny cages on the train home from Philly. I haven't heard them meow yet but I am looking forward to it - because the "meow" is the second-best sound on earth, just after the boom of the 808 (or the 909, or the XBase-09 - pick yr poison).
I jacked these photos from Mo's myspace page. She named them Steely (as in Dan) and Jean Grey (as in X-Men) but to me so far they're both just "Schmookie" (as in "Omfing god, you are so cute I get dumber just looking at you").
DARRIN'S. DANCE. GROOVES. TWO.
UNO. My friend C.'s blog compiles photographs her dad took from her childhood - watch out for the disturbing Chuck E. Cheese party-spank and the black JonBenet series. So cute plus musings on crafts and her cool vintage clothing store on e-bay.
DOS. flippin thru basic cabe and on NYCTV/cable access, that NY Noise show that only airs video from NY bands, I caught a bright eyes video - dude is singing an antiwar country song called "four winds," shot in black and white and close up on his face (with new veneers?!) -and the entire audience starts throwing tomatoes and protesting his protest, pieces of meat or whatever smashing into his face while he strums his guitar, stays strumming, looks defiantly out into the audience. they hate him but he's got something to say. there is a similar scene in the popular john travolta mechanical-bull-riding date movie "urban cowboy." or maybe in "La Bamba," when hot esai morales gets into a bar brawl with some racist beer-hogs trying to crimp the rock-n-roll style of Ritchie Valens (nee Valenzuela). i might have made that last part up. Anyway I think that Bright Eyes video, I think it's total myth-building, like "I am supposed to be the new Bob Dylan, right? Is it working? Can I be the mouthpiece of a generation?" But I like the video's sub-theme of "keep playing even if people are about to kick your ass" / stand up for what you believe in kinda shit. The song is whatever.
New York Noise is presently playing the following video, which is pretty corny except I also kinda like the robot punchline in the chorus, and I especially like the part with the doll and the robot and the pay phone, because I am obsessed with pay phones (the dying appliance).
TRES. This Spurs-sonning-Cavs thing is too predictable. HOWEVER, Horry's last jumpshot just before the half was beautiful - the choreography of it - at least before he collapsed to the ground. Ballin like Icarus, I say.
I hope she starts a blog but Sarah, my dear friend, has just moved to Amman. Just, as in: today. Some of her first impressions:
"Arriving was magical. Seeing the city at night, the desert and fields of camels. My landlord called me along the way to say welcome to Jordan and other nice, energetic things.
I arrived to find no towels, so my landlord took me on the spot to a "mall' which was actually like a pseudo american mall in a souk form, and bargained the hell out of this dude for 2 pink towels, well one pink one coral. he was so proud that i couldnt tell him they were the ugliest towels i'd seen. and on the drive back i saw the mosque lit up, the call to prayer echoing off the hills. it made my heart leap like seeing a crush from afar.
i hung out in my room, called jamil, watched M arabia, the arab MTV, and drank a bebsi."
I MISS HER ALREADY.
I was just looking at these photos from Nick's Los Angeles appearance as "DJ Catchdubs," and thinking - do you guys remember when Steve Aoki used to put out all only extremely radical political music like RADAR (who I really dug)? Yo, Planes Mistaken For Stars! Can't really envision them on the cobrasnake. (Do you think they meant the dirty rap definition when they titled their album "Up in them Guts"?) Peoples' unexpected career trajectories are infinitely fascinating.
My first-ever business cards as an editor included the impassioned tagline, "Art Before Commerce." (That was before I ordered a set that included the perhaps ill-advised tagline, "BOOM! I Got Yr Boyfriend." Still have some of those.) Anyway, "Art Before Commerce" - I wrote a lot of manifestos about that, rigid young ones, idealistic anticapitalist ones about art and integrity and never the-twain-meeting with the dirt of cash lest they sully the intentions. Now I wasn't like "people shouldn't get paid," but I was (and still am) like "be mindful of who pays you and why." I knew less then about the demoralizing nature of late-stage-capitalist workplace, the privilege of a certain definition of "integrity," and while I definitely know something about working poverty, growing up worrying about money, eating the last thing in the cupboard two days before payday and you don't even wanna know - particularly working poverty of the western rural states, a state of being which isn't probably as well known as urban poverty- I have been fortunate enough not to have lived in real, consistent poverty, knock on wood and bless everyone who has and is.
Art Before Commerce. Five years later I'm working at Viacom International, cheering in triumphant unison with 1200 employees in the lobby as ousted vice CEO (or whatever) Tom Freston makes his final exit. Total end-of-movie, secret-of-my-success, alex-p-keaton-at-the-NASDAQ moment, cheers, tears - even tho I was only present at his exuent cuz me and Joey and Gideon got stuck on the way back in from having a coffee / cigarette break and couldnt get to the elevators cause the Freston loyal were like, presenting him with a Carvel ice cream cake in the shape of an MTV Moonman popping a giant boner in the shape of a dollar sign.
But whatever, I respect Tom Freston's G - he wrote like a six page travelogue in the Africa issue of Vanity Fair (which includes this line, i swear to god: "The Buffet Hotel de la Gare [in Bamako] was the Malian version of Max's Kansas City.")
In the piece, Tom Freston and his G were able to just you know, call up Toumani Diabete (the amazing kora player who I am obsessed with who Joanna Newsom imitates flagrantly) on the telephone and get him to play a show for them with his gigantor-piece band. I mean the writing is tepid but I respect Tom Freston's G.
(Out of 20 possible cover combos of Vanity Fair's Africa issue, i bought the Chris Rock/Maya Angelou one. Chris Rock's essay on traveling to Africa to meet Mandela, entitled "The UGLY (African-) American" is worth the entire cost of the magazine, i.e.
"The flight kicked my ass. My wife, my two kids, and I flew 20 hours from New York, which gives you an idea of how long it took the slave ships to get to America. The flight felt like the Middle Passage to me. When we landed I had lost my religion, my culture, my name."
Chris Rock! Art before Commerce, you gotta do like Chris Rock and put the truth up in the Vanity Fair under the guise of comedy.)
I can only view tonight's Republican proceedings as a stunt of epic proportions: used car salesman Tommy Thompson and man-in-the-bubble Sam Brownback are clearly performance artists dispatched by Cooper Union - class of 1929. They met in the voice-throwing class, and came to be pals, because they had a lot in common. They were character actors, first, and embarked upon a short vaudeville run together after that - they had a partner act by the name of Tommy and Sam, ran an invisible flea circus with a tiny organ grinder and for extra money, dealt a little three card monte, penny ante, on the side. The dynamic duo fell apart for a brief time during the war years, when Thompson landed a job hawking Swedish double boilers to the US military, and Brownback was, fortuitously, shipped by his handlers into a hole deep in the ground. But now the Boys Are Back, and better than ever. Running for president as a pair. Debating on television. About precious wombs. And nuclear wars. The greatest show on earth.
No. I can't be flip about it, but it's just so hard not to feel incredulous at these hilscarious Republican presidential candidates, several of whom have clearly never left their houses or talked to anyone who wasn't a straight white male televangelist. Of those who are clearly in the running for the nomination - Romney can straight up bite it, and while I can get with Giuliani and McCain on one or two matters ON PRINCIPLE, even as the best ("best" = least likely to prompt my expatriation) candidates on the Republican end, they are still too scary to even fathom after the last eight nightmarish years. McCain is straight Norman Rockwell in this piece (even his most lucid moment, on immigration, was cloying and Tom Brokaw/"Greatest Generation" enough to give me the shivers) and based on this:
"I received hundreds of hours of briefings on the situation," he clarified, while speeding through the part where he said he never read the Intelligence before voting for the Iraq War. I definitely think McCain is the right man for the job. Hopefully as president he'd just base decisions on a shrewd combination of briefings, chance/ impulse, and the flippant advice of acquaintances. In fact, it would be rad if he would just let his pastor make all of his major war-related decisions for him, so he didn't have to over-exert his eyes.
To set down the pained sarcasm for a minute, I want to point out that everything advocated tonight was rooted in destruction, defensiveness, antagonism. There was a sense of "preserving" something. With the exception of McCain's eloquent speech about immigration/ green-card Latinos serving in Iraq (a speech totally negated by his actual policies and alignments), and Giuliani pointing out that immigration (social diversity) is what makes America great (a true New Yorker stance), there was apparently no doubt, on that stage, of the candidates' entitlement to preserve that thing. These are men whose sense of self is synonymous with their sense of being above, that they are living without a doubt on a holy plateau, righteously defending values (and language) and bodies and babies and, above all else, Christianity.
Huckabee's astonishingly simplified view of immigration summed up the scary stupidity of the night : he wants the borders closed, and immigrants (Mexicans) to go through one at a time, "with a ticket," in the same way Americans attend sporting events at a stadium. The imagery, appropriately, invokes manifest destiny. If the immigrant gets the ticket, the Americans have won.
(Has Huckabee ever been south of Colorado, by the way?)
(Please excuse the baby talk, something about this mf just incites me to patronize.)
You all can quit your arguing. I am the new Primo. At least when it comes to political punditry. At least when it comes to biased opinions. My friend said it was so! Proof that my brain is not just Beyonce factoids and overexcitable punctuation: I wrote Will an email about the Democratic debates, and he posted it on his great blog. I am flattered he deemed my missive fit to print, and not just because he's the only lawyer I know personally who 1. has never represented me 2. has never received monetary compensation from my bank account, professionally or otherwise. It's cause he is smart. Reedeeculously smart. And knows everything there is to know about politics from then to now. (Also: Brandy fan. Can't front.)
But still, by posting this, Will has quite hampered my quest to grow into one of those ornery disreputable persons who squanders their quasi-adult years by temptation of drink and flesh, then writes about it all for Vanity Fair's token backpage essay by the now-humorous sagely ex-party animal, who will be posthumously studied / worshiped / mimicked by stoner state college students. Drats! Guess I'm just going to have to grow up to be Fly Girl -ternt - Fly Lady of Leisure Jennifer Lopez. [cue Swizz beat] Como Ama una Mujer, bitches.
SPECIAL TO THE NEW BLOODS: Your shit better be flame-retardant.
I took a shower for this, even though my sunburn hurt. Except, the J train to Summer Jam broke down at 86th and Lex. A tragedy, it was, my umbrella and extra-cute jumpsuit and extra-extra-cute smartitude - all so prepped to pop, drop and lock on 80,000 hot rap'n'B fans from NY and NJ - all so squandered on the lobby of the chain bookstore outside the muddy subway. As consolation, the would-be driver, on early retirement, RapidShared w/me over iced coffees, which I, absentmindedly, over-Splenda'd. Meanwhile the texts from my friends at the actual Summer Jam came in: "OMG! WE ARE IN THE VIP WITH R.KELLY, HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON AND GABE "WE'RE INTO MOVEMENTS" TESORIERO! I JUST GOT A BACON SHRIMP HORS D'OUEVRES FROM MISS JONES! T-PAIN JUST GAVE ME A FOOT MASSAGE! WHERE R U?" Or, even more difficult to accept: "OMG! KEYSHIA COLE WAS SOOOOO GOOD." Meanwhile I'm peering out the coffee-shop window like a cooped puppy, watching the rain flood the gutters and cigarette butts and leaf fragments float and swirl along the tar of the street. A vision of disappointment. Poster-worthy, y'all.
So me and my girl Mo rented music movies and made like the shit was all right. All I can say is, what's up with Beyonce's eyebrows in Dreamgirls? It's Diana Ross, not Frida Kahlo.
NUEVA YORK! Noriko's Dinner Table, the unavailable-in-America prequel to the incredible / surreal 2001 Japanese horror film / suicide mystery / cultural critique Suicide Club... the prequel which allegedly ties up many of its open ends, such as Who is the cryptic cougher/caller in the underage pop band Dessert? From whence did the Ziggy Stardust-like psychotic gangleader come? In the internet age, what does it even mean to be connected to yourself?! - is totally playing at Two Boots' home cinema next week. Even though Two Boots theatre is roughly 1/4 smaller than my living room and smells like pizza grease, I will be there, reveling in the blood, delighting in the gore, and pondering the deep technological-age social commentary.
This totally makes up for the fact that the related manga is only available in Japanese.
death by cell phone
Beyonceitis. Has it affected you? A little heavy handed on the tone, a little enamored with the quasi-cleverness of the term Beyonceitis but it's got some truly hilarious moments, this. To wit:
"Before Beyonceitis crippled her, Ashanti enjoyed a brief period as "The Princess of Hip-Hop Soul", which was an easy title to achieve mainly because 1. There was no other artists to dispute her at the time. 2. Her record label gave her the title."
AND
"In the diagram above you can see how Beyonce's brain is different from ours. A normal person is born with a part of the brain which tells their body to sit down. When someone says "sit down" it sends a signal to the brain which sends a signal to your legs and then you walk to a chair, then it sends signal to your ass and then you sit down.
Beyonce was born without a "Sit Down" part to her brain. Whenever someone tells Beyonce to sit down it sends a signal to her legs and tells them to walk to a studio to record an album, then it sends another signal which tells the legs to walk to another studio and shoot videos for every song on that album, then it sends another signal telling the legs to walk to another studio and shoot a movie, then it sends another signal and tells the legs to re-record the album in Spanish, Japanese, and German."
Just Blaze posted an old Penthouse cover on his blog and my mind is blown. 1987 was a crazy year, que no? Not just cause of the line "Rapping it Up with Run-DMC" or the cover subject's proto-Bjork neon fashion style - but at the features: AN ANDREA DWORKIN INTERVIEW IS THE TOP STORY?! Also includes a piece by Joyce Carol Oates on Boxing, two AIDS/condom stories, and a race-riot inciting bit about Bernhard Goetz's "heroism." WHO WAS EDITING PENTHOUSE THEN? Fascinating.
