mercredi, août 15, 2007

Something To Hold Onto

Bilal

My recap of Bilal's Highline Ballroom show Friday before last is finally up at Hello, Babar. Check the Flickr slideshow for more pics.

Just cause I'm moody as a misfit and compelled to muse I'll tarry and share this; I liked 1st Born Second, loved it, really. Attempted to see Bilal in the Spring of 2000 at Joe's Pub on the strength of "Soul Sista," which I first heard in Marcia's Morehouse-James dorm room that fall and thought was D'Angelo. So when I came up to NYC by myself instead of down to Florida with all my crew to see D'Angelo at Radio City Music Hall and meet my Liverpool-bred Aunt and her BK-all day kids who had agreed to host me, I figured I'd trek in to Astor Place from Canarsie by my damn self to hear him. No luck though since I didn't know how that reservation thing worked, I was turned away at the door. I saw him later when he made it to the V103 stage at Music Midtown and he was amazing but it wasn't the same. I'm looking, listening, for those moments, pivotal and singular, I'm too spooked to live. I keep my ticket stubs in a modular shelf, dusty and overflowing, as proof of a discriminatingly consumptive life. An accomplished writer I went to prep school with hit me up Facebook the other day, and asked what I and my sister were up to, adding that he always knew we'd do great things. My sister's degrees speak for themselves but I have yet to respond. I'll hit him back when something big happens to me--no, see, that's the problem-- rather, when I manage to manufucture something big, something to hold onto.