What a Lovely Way to Burn

I woke up this morning with my lights on, my alarm ringing, Michael Crichton's new novel State of Fear splayed open beside my head and a picturesque view of neighboring snow-dusted Brownstones shining though my fourth floor apartment window. I took my time showering and getting dressed, leisurely watched a quarter of That's So Raven and ET on MTV before venturing into the sunbshine bright bitter cold city.

After copping 2 ounces of ginger spiked wheat grass from New York Naturals (I move organic medicinals by the OZ!), I trekked over the Brooklyn Bridge through Chinatown and Soho and into the west village to the sounds of Jeff Chang's Can't Stop Won't Stop mix cd which according to his website is extremely scarce. A condensed version of his critically acclaimed book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, tells the hip hop story in the most appropriate form, music.

Somewhere in Boerum Hill, on Dean between 3rd and Nevins or Nevins and Bond, Jimmy Castor Bunch's "It's Just Begun" put a little hop in my (kwik)step. In my dreams, I might have dropped the Triple 5 Soul bag I copped (as a free gift with purchase) from Jeff Chang's book party at the Bronx Musuem of Art and showcased some classic footwork. Nah, even better, I would have shown out like the b-boys at the beginning of Flashdance or as replicated in the great b-girl/b-boy film The Freshest Kids but I just smiled and heard the song as if for the first time. There is something the littered and concretized BK cityscape does for that intensifying break, that urban funk, that quintessential hip hop sound.

Still bopping and imaginary pop lockin' down Dean I remembered reading an article about Stuyvestant High as a 9th grader at Seattle's Lakeside School desperate to get up out of that stale chalky space and speaking to my high school's domestic exhcange program coordinator about making it happen. It didn't but I'm here now stepping my writing game up while living more than enough for the city and I guess that's all that matters.