food. food. and more food!!!

i took a quick stroll through the San Gennaro Festival on saturday. wow! that's a lot of food. it was goooooood too!!! :)


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HILARIOUS!!!!! a translated rap freestyle

I remember back when I was in college (wow - over 10 years ago) -- and email went around where university students were asked to take lyrics to a Biggie Smalls song and 'translate' them for those who didn't understand slang. the result: a wonderful soliloquy of proper english breaking down Chris Wallace's incredibly genius rhyming.

Consider this part deux! An erudite freestyle battle - GREAT STUFF!!!!

thanks to Dj Herbert for sending this over. Oh - and if you have never been to his weekly party FREEDOM at Canal Room, i require your attendance there before Halloween. I mean it. It's truly one of the best parties ever.

fly the 'change we can believe in' skies

on the way to miami we were slightly delayed on the runway, as a "VIP" landed at LaGuardia. the pilot came on and said he couldn't say who it was yet, but that the side of the plane had the slogan 'change we can believe in'. :) (my shot is the second one. i found better one, so you can see the intricacies of the plane)

the staff at LGA were remarkably efficient, as the plane pulled off to a special section of the airport - where approx 20 vehicles immediately circled to collect the passengers as they deplaned. pretty cool stuff. i continue to feel like part of history during this campaign. i just hope and pray that we can come together as country and recognize that Barack will do wonders for this country's economy, improve the face of the USA across the world, and help get us out of Iraq - where we should not be in the first place.

my friend rahsaan is running an Obama office in harlem - and in the coming weeks i plan to volunteer. money isn't enough this election. we democrats have to put in the time to ensure Obama/ Biden go the distance.

i'm straight volleyballin'

this tuesday, i will once again trek to west 56 street to play go to the Big City Open Scrimmage. each volleyball season, they do a night for people to come and play and try to get together with other folks of similar skill level and create a make-shift volleyball squad. two years, this didn't work out so well for me - i ended up on a team filled with scrubs. then last year, we had a really great team, but we ended up getting ranked at too high a level and got pounded every game. good learning experience watching and learning from our opponents though. so, in a little over 48 hours, i'll go back to well.

i hadn't played in a while, except at my uncle/ aunt's 25th wedding anniversary in the backyard. so, last weekend i went to Central Park, and help my own - i'm happy to say. my jumping ability has fallen off, but i'm going to actively try to rectify that.

yesterday, here in miami, i went to see the beach volleyball championships. awesome stuff. it is soooo much harded to play 2's on the beach than you might expect from seeing Misty May/ Kerri Walsh on tv at the Olympics. enjoy a few shots of central park & south beach bumping-setting-spiking below.

jon stewart = awesome.

a deconstruction

check out this wonderfully crafted blog entry on NaS' classic album, Illmatic.
it features a deep-dive on each of the tracks.
read more here.

detroit is jazz

dan's father invited me to join he and kate at the detroit jazz festival this weekend - and i had no plans for this long weekend - so i jumped on a plane. we went to 3 days of great music at the largest free jazz festival in the country.

DAY 1:
*dianne reeves - wonderfully jazzy, and a great rendition "just my imagination"
*marvin gaye tribute featuring christian mcbride, jose james, rahsaan patterson and layla hathaway - good stuff. jose was the stand-out.

DAY 2:
*philly/detroit summit featuring mcbride, karriem riggins, randy brecker, geri allen, perry hughes and bootsie barnes - great straight ahead jazz.
*sonny fortune quartet - check out his arrangement of "you and the night and the music"
*rueben wilson and grant green jr. - hard bop at its finest.
*latin jazz allstars!!!!! - FANTASTIC! ray vega was great on trumpet, arturo o'farrill was superb on piano, and steve turre put down his trombone to seashells in the finale!!!

DAY 3:
*brubeck institute - quintet of students from dave brubeck's school in cali. great young jazz musicians took the house down.

a great weekend of jazz music --- and friend food. :)
also in this photo array, you'll find scenic shots of detroit - and some shots of harvey & kate's lovely home.


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