Funny...

H/T: America Blog

Chef Sucks

Photo Credit: Minxeats, which has a great recap, with annotated screen caps, of last night's ep.

As I told my bud E.B. and later my sis, I don't think Dale would have got the boot had Tom Colicchio been at the judges table or Gail Simmons for that matter. Tom notoriously brings a chef's technique and history into play and Dale won a lot of challenges and is a fantastically skilled chef who admittedly suffers when paired with idiots and assholes (Spike and Lisa respectively). And although the other team performed well enough, they certainly should have had points deducted for ease of menu and for not being a gastropub. The judges were just lax. They didn't ask enough questions or any of the right questions and they certainly should have interrogate Spike's "I had to hang Buddhas" explanation of his work load. They didn't bring their staff to the judges table to speak freely and reveal who exactly made what, as they have in the past (as my sister noted, Steph sort of lied about the fresh pasta. Would it have been as good if not for the help of Nikki?) Anyway, I'm pretty crushed by Dale's loss although some of my folk felt it was inevitable as Bravo wouldn't let an Asian dude win two years in a row. Anyway, I guess I'm pulling for Steph or Blaze now. I don't care for Antonia and all her little ignorant ass quips about the purported narrowness of Dale's expertise and digs at Asian cuisine. I don't recall her having much breadth to her cooking repertoire; It all seemed pretty American Nouveau to me. She is extra wack.

I encourage you all to go vote for Dale (I just voted for him 10x) as your fan fav so he can win the 10G's. Here is the link.

B-Day Blues

So Sun is my b-day and I don't know what to do. I don't know what I want or rather I want/need a lot of things and can't figure out what I want more so I haven't communicated nan pref. to my fam (my dad would call this the paralysis of analysis) and I get super duper depressed when people get me shit I don't like 'cause then I feel grossly misunderstood or worthless. Worse still, I cloak this malaise to make people feel better and that's just plain arduous. A friend from college shares the same b-day and is doing drinks on Sunday. I don't know if I'll go. Two groups of friends are bbqing Mon. but I don't know if I'll roll to either although they both sound fun. If not for Facebook, I figure most people would forget it except for a tried and true few who reliably text and ring e'ry year, often at the stroke of midnight. We'll see. I can't say that I've ever been super jazzed about my b-day but I don't recall being this melancholic. I mean the best gift would be a new venture that I won't specify but that I have attempted to make real in the past two months. I don't so much want a gift but a yes instead of a no. Seriously. World, don't let me down. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

WONDER-Full '08

Photo credit: Erik the Artist

It would have been ideal if this would have jumped off under the Taurus sign but whatever. This Gemini will be in attendance. PS-Nice choice of venue.

Saturday June 14, 2008
KeiStar Productions Presents
WONDER-Full™(X) - An Annual Tribute To The Wonder Of Stevie
@ THE MANHATTAN CENTER GRAND BALLROOM
311 West 34th Street (Btwn 8th & 9th Aves) NYC / 9PM
w/ The Incomparable DJ SPINNA & BOBBITO aka Kool Bob Love

Tickets Will Be On Sale At:

Fat Beats (NYC) 406 6thAvenue (Corner of 8th Street) 212.260.8729
Pieces (BKLYN) 671 Vanderbilt Ave (Corner Of Park Pl.) 718.857.7211
Academy Records (NYC) 415 East12th Street (Btwn 1st Ave & Ave A) 212.780.9166
Harriet’s (BKLYN) 293 Flatbush Avenue (Corner Of St. Marks Pl.) 718.783.2074
Addy & Ferro (BKLYN) 672 Fulton Street (Btwn South Elliot & South Portland) 718.246.2900

For More Info:
keistarproductions@gmail.com
www.myspace.com/keistarproductions
www.myspace.com/djspinnafrombrooklyn
www.myspace.com/bobbitogarcia

"Deep, Deep, in the Shag: Bits of Broken Glass You Can Never Get Out"

I needed to loosen so I walked speedily downtown. 'Round about City Hall I called it a an evening, hopped on the R, and still tight, swung by Greene Grape for a bottle. I opted for a red for my heart's sake. Now home, my head's a bowling ball and I don't know if I'll get around to transcribing any tape. Phil squared is all in my head. Their duet doesn't make sense. Shouldn't she have been hard, the most arduous of lovers?

I preferred the caesar to the current dread pony on Mr. Bailey. Ditto that, since we're on the subject, for A.G.

I guess ease suggests deceptiveness but I'd have gone the other way and probably written a bad song but it would have hit the nail on head. That's for sure. George Benson got the me other day too, in a Jesus Juice free state of mind. "Turn Your Love Around"? To whom was that charge directed. A woman of the night? A gold digger? I'm trying to construct a cogent narrative out of it, after it popped up on my iPod one sleepy morning commute and had me confused. There are certainly better allocations of my brain power, I know.



Think on it.

I reviewed Lionel Loueke's show from last night earlier today (where I snapped the above photo). I've heard him a few times but never in trio. He performed two of my favorite songs, "Benny's Tune" and "Nonvignon," the latter with invited guests Gretchen Parlato and Gregoire Maret, who had one of those network anchors' jaw stuck on the floor accompanying Marcus Miller on a weekend morning show performance not to long ago. I didn't much care for his cover of "Body & Soul" not so much 'cause it was bad but I just think his original compositions are so good and better reflective of his talents. Anyway, check the review out here.

Gotsa to be cool...

Someone take away Paul Kix's laptop immediately. My "Hip Hop" Google alert directed me to this inane, offensive, simple-minded and grossly misinformed piece for Salon. I don't know why idiocy like this still surprises me! Kix gets everything wrong about hip hop. Where Kix finds success is in demonstrating his ignorance of the past and present American musical landscape (he'd be well served to look into how dance crazes have figured into popular music before and beyond hip hop) and his narrow and demeaning demands on Black cultural production, e.g.,

"Since when did young black men, heretofore the arbiters of pop culture, become so lame?"

I guess that's supposed to be funny. It's folly to think of racism as just white hoods and nooses it's also the strictures, institutional or structural on Black life. Shuffle, shuffle, pose and cackle. Good lawd, give us free.

Kix attempts to provide a critical history of hip hop's alleged demise and make aesthetic judgments but he proves woefully unsuccessful at those basic tasks,

It's an amorphous thing, to chronicle hip-hop's decline, but I trace its genesis to the sound every fan loved: Atlanta at the turn of the century, repelling what New York and Los Angeles did, finding its own way with krunked-out beats and slurred lyrics. Atlanta (Outkast and Ludacris mostly) begat the Cash Money Millionaires of New Orleans (think Juvenile and "Back That Ass Up." The music then evolved, except that T.I. and his ilk in Atlanta and Lil Wayne and his in N'Awlins were neither as clever with the rhymes as Ludacris nor as adept in the production as Outkast. A sound that was already simpler than what Dre out west or Puffy out east would have allowed became lazy, less crisp, and the lyrics were all that much harder to decipher, hiding behind drawls and weighed down by bling.

He'd need look no further than his beloved Outkast's ATLiens to find a preemptive defense of their rap colleagues and I am no great fan of Weezy or Tip but neither completely lacks wit or dexterity. And what Kix means by "hiding behind drawls" and how that differs from the earlier vaunted "slurred lyrics" is as unclear as it is unsettling. So Black rappers, be advised that you are failing in your duty to sate Kix's lust for that authentic cool, embedded in Negro genes along with athleticism and rhythm, we are to suppose. If you want to raise your blood pressure, click here to read the foolish rest.

Claws Out

More on Star Kitty here. More of Star Kitty here.

Summer Soft

So Stevie's globe trotting spectacular continues. He's hitting up a variety of venues, across the country in addition to his festival stops. He'll be at Jones Beach, Wednesday, June 18th and tix go on sale Sat. They are pricey as usual and I really shouldn't drop the dough. I would have loved to catch him and Al in N.O. for a much more reasonable $50 but alas it wasn't to be. Can someone book Stevie again at the Apollo or why don't they let him have free reign over Central Park a la Dirty Diana in the rain years ago?!? That would light up my life!

Check out Live Nation or Ticketmaster for additional Stevie dates. They all go on sale on either Fri, Sat or Mon. He'll also be in Auburn on July 11 for my folk in the NW.