mad respect to Badu, Kweli and ?estlove. ...and goshdangitt EVERY time Erykah speaks she straight drips ill verses of dopeness. wow.
i like teaching in West Oakland where all the vintage footage is from; straight outta Sweden. oh, that and the brooklyn bookstore owner interview is claaaaaaasic.
but i can't even forget how Marcus Books folk have been holding it DOWN in the bay for years.
...my waking thoughts on Christmas' eve was a shower of mental snapshots: "Don't write 'xmas' Mr. D, 'cause that's crossing out the 'Christ' in Christmas!" -a few of my 5th graders.
okie doke.
"..this economy got things bad! What the hell happened to Richmond, bruh?" (I had just relayed that I saw my buddy's apartment he lived in during high school,[he's since lived in New York the past 20 years] in the newspaper, a shot of it burned-out, aligned with a story about squatters and foreclosures) "Damn, man, I tell people all the time out here I'm from Richmond, and they always say 'What, Richmond Virginia?'
"...and I'm like, naw' Richmond CALIFORNIA! It ain't no joke. You better ASK somebody!" -high school pal relocated to Brooklyn.
yes. at least to me, these hard times look slightly 'harder' in the Rich.
my daily spiritual routine involves 7 elements of mindfulness interconnected to: vision. wisdom. purity. strength. peace. love. and victory. there are many other fine ideas to attach to ones' ongoing awareness about in the world, i suppose...
but reflecting, as my closest loved ones are well beyond a 50 mile radius from me today, it is easiest to go about the business of each activity with elan, holiness and respect.
some would argue the Nike AJ Retro 11' Concord embodies that. to others it's just another iconic bastion of what's wrong with consumption; what, with the lines, rushes to collect, cop, admire, stunt...what have you.
to me, this shoe, as enigma, is yet another focal point or flash point of regional urban experience; highlighting the disparate variance of human conditions.
remember Cazals? remember Krylon? remember the 'tennis bracelet'? remember the 'perfect' one? remember (that thing, person or ingredient of your own experience that would take you to that next level of 'fresh'?)
we at bwlp send you best wishes during amazingly turbulent times. we're honored to be alive now. we're grateful for our friendships and loves through music. we're thankful for awareness and the capacity to considering opposing views. we love that the urge to assist someone in need, need not go further than your neighbor.
we love the mindful elan of holiness and respect that comes from wholly tending to your art of living.
on the eve of Drum. Bass. (code name for the actual title....)
one 4 teen bahamadia jdilla remix, love and space by shanti om, over by naibu & key, more than i can take by lensman, work it out by q-tip, two can play the game with morris chestnut and anthony anderson jay z’s threat fel sweetenberg remix, track no.4 by jdilla, timewavezero by intermetric, the upper room by afrikan sciences, sabre remix of the touch by mortem, raise your weapon by deadmaus, ghetto heaven part 2 by dilladog, the captian obvious jazzy remix of one love by nas, the differences by sango, mount kimbie remix of a town called absolete by andreya triana, yemaya by xaphrykan, her favorite color by oh4real?!, soul clap remix of garden by teed, time by chase and status featuring delilah.
magazines, of course. between beats, cables, mics and jacks... a fellah' needs to go way elsewhere with words and images. especially since most of our inspiration comes from imagined soundtracks for rooms in vintage fashion magazines. (so imagine the photo clippings for 'drum. bass.' come Christmas...)
soon we'll be on a train to see loved ones in the central valley,but not before so much audio construction goes down- and two gift purchases to go. and then there's those niggling little birthday folks who happen to be born within days of winter's holiday.
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa traditions, withstanding.
but to get right and direct with this posting, nothing satisfies like a great magazine for the literate fashionistos y 'istas in your life.
get on over to your most excellently outfitted mag' retailer and scoop up these 3 top publications for stockings and respective holiday counterparts:
"Healing Michael Ellis says sometimes only a mystery explains the unexplainable.
By Michael Ellis
About two years ago I began to suffer the greatest series of cluster headaches I have ever had. These are related to, but not exactly like, migraines and are also called suicide headaches. They can be extremely debilitating and people have been known to kill themselves from them. Fortunately I do not suffer to that extent -- but they are bad.
While I was leading trips in the Mojave, I went to see an eccentric artist friend of mine who lives on the edge of Death Valley. I mentioned my headaches to her. She said, "I am a hands-on healer and I can help you."
"Well I don't have time right now I have to go meet my other group."
"It only takes a moment."
Ok, I had nothing to lose. She uncrossed my legs, had me sit erect, closed my eyes and as I sat still on a worn out folding chair in the hot desert heat. She put her hands on my head, said some things I could not understand, brushed rapidly downward several times and that was it. Fifteen seconds, max.
Now I am a scientist-type, a skeptic. If it cannot be measured and data gathered under controlled circumstances then I don't usually believe it. The fact is, however, I have not had a headache in nearly two years. Now they are called cluster headaches for a reason so it could have just been a coincidence. Last April when I returned to the desert I stopped by for another hands-on healing from LeAnne, just in case it wasn't.
Right now we are immersed in this holiday season, and spirit abounds. At age 60 I am finally beginning to understand, or at least feel, that there are many things in our world that cannot be quantified or explained but do exist. What hubris we humans have to think that if our feeble minds cannot grasp it, then it must not exist or be real. There are things that are simply mysteries right now.
My friend LeAnne touched me and I was healed. How, I do not know. Maybe someday we will be able to measure the energy fields that emanate from some people that can actually rearrange neuronal pathways at a close distance but for now I must accept that LeAnne is simply a hands-on healer with a gift to give.
This is Michael Ellis, with a Christmas Perspective."
everything's late, but only because we're upping some ante. the game has changed and we've gotta go all 'secret-weapon' on a few things. hold tight. it's coming...
I seem to remember us saying something about this last summer or so... but the jig is up and at least one resident 7 year-old will be on the edge of his seat.
in today's technological times, it seems perfect to capture the spirit of a comic so ahead of it's time.
That's right y'all. The Civil War is YOUR history, too. Senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly, Te-Nehisi Coates breaks it down:
"In our present time, to express the view of the enslaved--to say that the Civil War was a significant battle in the long war against bondage and for government by the people--is to compromise the comfortable narrative. It is to remind us that some of our own forefathers once explicitly rejected the republic to which they'd pledged themselves, and dreamed up another country, with slavery not merely as a bug, but as its very premise. It is to point out that at this late hour, the totems of the empire of slavery--chief among them, its flag--still enjoy an honored place in the homes, and public spaces, of self-professed patriots and vulgar lovers of "freedom." It is to understand what it means to live in a country that will never apologize for slavery, but will not stop apologizing for the Civil War.
In August, I returned to Gettysburg. My visits to battlefields are always unsettling. Repeatedly, I have dragged my family along, and upon arrival I generally wish that I hadn't. Nowhere, as a black person, do I feel myself more of a problem than at these places, premised, to varying degrees, on talking around me. But of all the Civil War battlefields I've visited, Gettysburg now seems the most honest and forward-looking. The film in the visitor center begins with slavery, putting it at the center of the conflict. And in recent years, the National Park Service has made an effort to recognize an understated historical element of the town--its community of free blacks."
i went into a little place that served great coffee one morning. it was in the Temescal district of the town and they served vegan donuts. o.k. i know a bit more on the back-story on those, but needless to say: they're delicious. but anyways, i met a crazy bloke who went on and on about starting a sorbet shoppe. about how someone he knew was a genius sorbet alchemist.
well, he wasn't kidding. hence, SCREAM now exists.
if you know anything about the crew here, you know that we rock decadence to the fullest. in that vein, SCREAM sorbet could serve as some patron saint of heavenly, cool tidings.
word.
after a fill 'er up kind of dinner at Zachary's on college ave.... Chicago style stuffed pizza and our share of Fat Tire (people always wanna order a pitcher of, but Z's frowns on and denies...)
it was time for something light, easy, and well...decadent. there was no second guessing a trip to SCREAM.
and the perfect selection lay there smack dab in the middle of the shop seeming to giggle, "...you GOT your girl, right here, daddy-o!"
chilled and dressed to kill in gold crinkle and adhesive white print...
Pistachio Cardamom Orange Cookie Sorbet Sandwich.
'Halle-berry-freaking-lujah.'
if you want to sweep someone off their feet through a desert unsuspecting, act like you don't know where you're going one night sometime around Telegraph and 51st and just amble in: "Oh I don't know, I'll just go for the Pistachio, Carda,... Carda..oh just give me THAT one."
Share it. And if there hasn't been a smooch before this- there's definitely one in the cards after this.
we have to admit we've been captivated at Chrissy Fields watching these stately creatures wade ankle to belly high poking for snacks....
we have to admit it was one of our son's birthday over the weekend.
we have to admit work on many report cards for children are still in process.
we have to admit this weekend saw the kind of climate that allowed children to fake-ice skate on plastic-puzzle floored rinks under afternoon sun...be able to see the moon, Mount Diablo, Alcatraz, the Farallon Islands, Napa, and San Jose, all in one 360 degree spin on the Bay Bridge.
...and it's December 5th, 2011, northern Califas.
call it a beautiful life moment in time. a snapshot of lots going on and appreciation in full effect.
it's monday. game on.
so until the podcast is up, read-up our latest cold-crush: Sara Varon's, Bake Sale.
T h i s B o o k I s L o v e l y .
here's something nice about Sara here. and can you believe she's also a recreational boxer?! (...if her jabs are on point as her humorous nuance- she a BEAST in the ring, yo..)
-we've been down since Chicken and Cat. (hill- ar ee usss!!!)
have you ever been in love? perhaps you’re in love now- all fresh up in it... or maybe you vaguely remember what it was like; as a french kiss in the Alps... (hmmm. or somewhere quite else...)
BOCA!! BOCA!! BOCA!!
but what i’m getting at is: if you've ever known love and wish to experience it in a completely new and different way,
head on over to Encuentro. 202 2nd street. oakland, ca 94607.
so, i was looking to romance myself after feeling a little inspired on the guitar
having hashed out a few lost chords; finishing touches on the holiday drum & bass EP (craziness, totally.)
when i said, “freak-it. i’m bouncing over there. cash budget and all.”
oh baby. the bruchetta. black sea salt, pepper jam, avocado, persimmon, chevre, olive (oil) supreme.... a superb red wine,
a teeny bottomless glass of water...
heaven.
and the crowd looks good. like you’d expect of angels. tended to by lordy lordy sidekicks with disarming sweetness.
just go.
bring someone you’ve been dying to talk to for awhile. or just show up with the latest GQ like I did and giggle to yourself on snarky lines interspersed amongst bird-eyed fashion-istos.
topping off a hard-won week of teaching and witnessing my 5th graders knock learning targets out the box.
way out.
me smiling at Netflix & a demitasse of ice cream.
(oh and about that podcast thing: catch it this Sunday evening 12/4/11....sorry we’re running late!)
what's sooooo funny about this is that i know verrrrry few fellahs who haven't had notions rocked all throughout this vid. i once had a young lady try and hip me to the script about yoga being an 'inside job.' hmmm, REALLY now...
now i'm o say this on the realness. somebody videotaped a crew i was actually IN back in 1985; SideWalk Breakers. but i got put on by Jr. and JonJon in Milpitas. Jesse, Jonny, and Jr. repped big time. Jonny used to rock a curly quasi-mohawk... i got put on after responding to a challenge by poppin and launching into a handbone routine that i perfected back in the crescents (Crescent Park out at the green box on the latenite!)
the south bay was key in representing real b-boyness back in the day; proud to have been a part of it. more notable crew in De Milpas at the time were Heartbrears Crew, Balance Breaking Crew, Just Us (San Jose), Sidewalk, hmmmm maybe a few others.
we used to DO IT!!!!
it's hard for me to tell who's who in this version of the crew...(i'm not in this footage) but i was down circa 1985. ask around, Milpitas California!!!!
So ?estlove tweets that the Roots have something for Democratic Presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann's, walk-on for Jimmy Fallon's late night show this week, alluding it's Fishbone oriented...
They decide to rip into Fishbone's 1985 classic, Lying A$$ B*tch as Michele Bachman strolls out for the interview.
"la, lala, la, lalalalala.."
Jimmy was reportedly respectful and kind on the show. However, I REALLY would've wanted to be a fly on the wall for the debriefing up in the NBC corporate headquarters with Fallon on speakerphone...
Naaw, naaaw, funk that; what I REALLY want to see is Barack, Michelle, Michele, NBC's late night programming vice-president Dough Vaughan, and Fox News Senior Executive Producer of News and Politics, Jay Wallace, hashing this out at my local coffee outlet, Blue Bottle Coffee over here in Jack London, Oakland!
That would be the shizzinit!! (come onnnnn, you know you'd join me...) There was a leetle funk as she participated in a one-word-answer-per-que session when Fallon said President Obama and she replied, "finished."
But hey, weren't Michelle O (and Dr. Jill Biden) were boo'd at a Nascar event just last week?
Let's just keep all this bad behavior pushin'
The world is blurring as challenges to preconceptions about gender, color, politics, and culture in general are fading like watercolors. (respect eviscerated it's more like IDGAF on 30 # test text!)
And people are plain, not being nice... [and since there hasn't always been a lot of niceness anyway, I suppose all this is okay...] Does anyone know that in the digital age, we'll be able to replay these things "...fuh'evah?! Fa eva eva, Fa evah evah?"
Get ready for a really freaky campaign year.
Po poo poo politico pot -shotin' BIG time.
We however will report our take on things, will be looking in quite other directions to big up those positive things that elevate hard working individuals on the come-up. Regardless of race, political affiliation, or affiliations in general.
(...we don't want to end up on an ANONYMOUS hit list! tee, hee, kinda.)
Love and Relationship hold answers- but you gotta be ready to receive. Our New Year's Resolution came early; right about on Thanksgiving.
We're on some Love and Relationship Ready-To-Receive from now on.
Get with the plurals, people.
-b.p. d'oiseux, p.bhlecksi parmella, frank niao, & dirty branden bengz
to some serious isht. December BWLP 2011 is cookin' like turkeyday prep! Freshest, smartest, bumpin-ist podcast yet. Y'all better tell a friend now, Frank Niao and B.Phlecksi Parmella are just setting it off on paradigm as something quite NEXT.
W O R D.
seriously, my sweet potatoes are on LOCK for smiles all around at first bite of those bad boys in pies as they adorn dinner tables tomorrow for several lucky recipients across the Bay- hand-delivered by yours truly! - can't funk 'wit pumpkin pie, yo -
smoked turkey red beans... mustard greens that get you thrown bows if you rush da pot... dirty rice you ain't know what to with... (y'all DON'T hear ME!!)
...edition of Paper is out. thematically, i cannot remember many magazines casting a zinger on point to this degree. the themes are tight, clean and precise. Miranda July's trapsing throughout is really funny.
(...not to mention; she rocks the kind of lips you want to kiss in a million different ways.)
every issue should showcase high-art paper couture constructions on gorgeous* human beings.
*insert your definition of gorgeous as a link here:
really.
in it's own way, this issue is nearly close to perfect as possible.
everything in it is killer.
think of it as the kind of parallel kick-a$$ clinic of publication on par with the gamesmanship display Barca layed on Manchester United last year for the whole world to see...
it costs money at a few fru-fru newsstands i normally patronize...
The world has changed in so very many ways since 1979. It has been since then, that I was the age of my average current 5th grader. My father served in the military. And just about every man of age in his Kansas state neighborhood did too.
I know that sometimes, many times, it appears that people do not appreciate the Americans that serve in the military forces.
But I want to express that this is one person who understands that there is a human being, a daughter or son of a mother and father- a person who wears the uniform. I'd even go so far as to say,... beyond an American.
It's important to note that the freedoms we exercise in this country are not free. As such, we walk a fine line in the eyes of many with regards to situational appropriateness.
It can also be said that all's fair in love and war. If you have personally known either, you realize how true that is... or conversely is not.
Living in an age of juxtapositions is nothing new. However one thing remains pure as the winds of change: PRESENCE.
Be present. Stand up for yourself. Learn through growth.
And by all means, LISTEN.
We at BWLP respect those who serve in the armed forces for what they do and what they give up so that we can at least have an opportunity to follow our dreams... at least.
I have NEVER been a lager man. I'm porter, almost always. HOWEVER, that was before I had both the LS lager as well as the California-style unfiltered version at a skate away from the crib over at Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon It was a no-brainer. Stay inside on a balmy Friday afternoon to have my pint (bicycle-delivered keg snapped fresh from the tap) in a chilled glass as opposed to something plastic gathering alchemy.
No matter the nearby helicopters reminding me that OWS Oakland was snatching up national attention blocks away- protests in full-effect.
But.
I had my NYT Magazine back issues rolled and ready for reading; a hard week of teaching ;lay in the wake. It was high time to get some relaxation in.
Linden Street's current lager incarnates implore you to celebrate your unwinding with one. Have one, heck TWO Lagers. Cold.
The blissful smile upon the first sip'll arrive on your face as a courtesy.
Bean Bowers' recollection of traversing and ice lake is good stuff. I want to share it with my 5th graders:
"As I worked my way along, I gazed up at the steep glacier, dreading the long slog up to the snow cave. Just then, smack in the middle of the lake, I heard a crack and in an instant I was sinking. Pinned. Stuck. Screwed. My skis had gone from a light-and-fast ticket across the lake to deadweight anchors. I stopped sinking once my pack hit the slurpee-like water. I looked at the shore as the weight of my situation fully sunk in. Swim or die...."
The supporting cast at Blue Bottle Coffee on the 7AM daily get pretty deep off the cup. An astute group that can drop science without a second thought, like: "...the helicopter; that's the sound of an other person's civil liberties being violated."
And the next (day) thing you know...downtown Oakland was flashing and banging.
I went to New York in 1988 to check out Keith Haring's Studio. But little did anyone know, I had Too $hort all up in my Walkman. (yes,... Walkman, you CLOWNS!!)
"See, I met this girl..." DOOOM DAH DOOM DOOOM... DOODAH DOODA DOOM DA DOOM DOOM!!!
y'al don't even hear me though.
It was what kept me from bleaking out over at Wagner College over on Shao Lin. That and sneaking to listen to classical LP's when I was supposed to be shelving books at my Financial-Aid gig job in the library from 6-10 PM. (dang, ish ain't always EASY.) Those were tough times.
Wow. I Can't Wait Until I GRADUATE!!! EMETIC LANDSCAPE a l l d a y!!
-bwlp
Peace to Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) for doin' his thing out at S.O.B's over the weekend.
What We Might Learn As Teachers from Steve Jobs *as adapted by bwlp from the online article: WHATS HUGE, The techtainment Blog, accessed athttp://whatshuge.com/2011/10/7-rules-of-steve-jobs/ on 10/20/11 at 5:05AM
1. Bring what you love into the classroom. Jobs once said, "People with passion can change the world for the better." Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, "I'd get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about." That's how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.
2. Put a dent in the universe; inspire children to change the world. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?" Don't lose sight of the big vision. Children will grow to rule.
3. Make connections in curriculum to a diversity of subjects and realia. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn't have any practical use in his life -- until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don't live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.
4. Say no to 1,000 things; focus on a few key skills for academic success. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the "A-Team" on each project. Put the "A-Team Attitude" on each semester goal. What are you saying "no" to?
5. Create insanely different experiences; how many things do children see when they walk in the door suggest their lives are enriched upon entry? Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your students?
6. Master the message; humans are conditioned to listen to storytelling- don’t fight the feeling!! Tell good stories that lead students to tasks and expectations. It’s better than appearing to beg them to listen. (I was ‘almost’ there...) You can have the greatest idea/lesson in the world, but if you can't communicate your objectives, it doesn't matter. Jobs was the world's greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.
7. Sell dreams, not daily agendas. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It's so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your students don't care about your daily agenda. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your students reach their dreams, you'll win them over.
So the overall message is: dream bigger for your students and consequently yourself. See genius in your craziness, believe in yourself, believe in your vision: crafting young people to be the best people they can be first to apply and develop their academic skills second, hence be constantly prepared to defend those ideas.
Out children need so much in their lives to be successful stewards of our current era, there is no time to waste in accessing our higher good and genius to educate them well.
Just wanted to make sure y'all didn't miss this. (I'm one to talk a week away from missing ALL the graf isht over in the town last week while I was totally moving here from Emeryville.....)
But see, this is why a brotha' gotta be all bi-coastal n stuff!
It's nice to just see some straight up hip-hop lifestyle going down. From all sorts of angles. Being all at it in the Tenderloin, Apex & Neonsksi doing it.
I gotta tell ya, I'm truly feeling Oaklandish; being I'm all up in Jack London now, over in the town. Still teaching in West O. But I always got love for SF. Mtn. Colors gets maaaaaaad props for supporting West Oakland on the regular with events and beautiful projects. Peace to Rime. Meme, Ms. Reds and 1AM Gallery for being so gottang nice.
What's crazy is that I know this cats ma. We vibed on a West Oakland SEEK education project. It seems we'll have a lot to talk about at some point... When you teach Hip Hop at UC Berkeley, well hell. It don't get any further than that, yo.
Mad Respect. World Class.
Me and Quamm gotta vibe at some point 'cause we got alot to say... lotsa commonalities.
Now I came to the Bay from a teeny weeny town, Milpitas back in 1986. My folks are from the Rich, so I was into hip hop and went straight to New York in 1988. And I was over at Wagner in Staten Island; hooked up with Hak, pre Channel Live and KRS...listening to all the Red Alert stuff and running with my West Indian 'rockers' clique outta Nazareth in Brooklyn. so my intro intro the production and deep investment into hip hop- always a spoken-word cat... Never got in on the local scene..I was just two steps outside that,..a little more punk rock and rounded out into other things on some songwriting isht.
But hey, life can be long. Well see what the future brings.
This is what we used to say to one another back in the day when you were looking extremely stylish. Messi gets massive points for snatching up this month's Four Four Two cover in mad style!
emcee, producer, archivist, keeper of all hip hop disciplines: dj'ing, rhyme arts, double dutch rope skills, graf, b-boy/b-girl dance, showcase, writer et. al. Now Up In Albany, yo!
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