The hotness, it burns
My passion unrequited
It feels wonderful
So tall. So attractive. More acting prowess than many will give you credit for. And yet, it wasn’t until I saw this when I swooned. I’m smitten by you. I can’t help it. One day we’ll run into each other at an Along Came Mary event, me doling out risotto from behind a buffet table. All I want is a wink. Just one wink.
I went out one evening to Avalon with some cool acquaintances to take in some enlightened drum n bass. I was wearing my wig, my souvenir v-neck from the Prince concert, and 3 inch heels. We eased onto the dance floor, dancing, having a nice time. When I dance, I tend to travel after a while; I ended up on the other side of the venue. Right in front of some hipster dude wearing the requisite flannel/plaid button-up. He exclaimed. He wrapped his arms around me from behind. He vigorously grabbed and caressed my muffin top. He wouldn’t let go. The more I struggled, the further he buried his face into my fro.
*meaning, intoxicated with mdma/ecstasy, for all of you who are even more of a square than I am
I don’t celebrate holidays. The only reason I do Halloween parties and outfits is because that’s the only time people want to throw costume parties, it seems like. The only reason I make any sort of deal out of New Year’s Day is because that’s when my family gets together every year for dinner in Alabama, and I love my family to pieces. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. But it seems that while I’ve been away from Los Angeles, a few certainties have hit me regarding my survival over the course of the next ten months.
I don’t know for sure yet, I’ll find out tomorrow, but it looks like my unemployment is all tapped out. If so, it’s sort of a good-bad thing. The past year is the longest stretch of time since undergrad that I’ve had stable income to pay rent and bills – mostly from my unemployment claim - and I won’t have that anymore. At the same time, however, I’ll finally be able to quit LAUSD. I’ve mentioned before how tedious and frustrating it is to have my schedule tied down to a job that NEVER calls. I’ve only worked ONE DAY so far this school year. My sub job has been paying my unemployment since they have been unable to provide at least 25 hours a week for me. But if I’m tapped out, then there’s no reason for me to stay. Parting will be bittersweet – I’ve had some experiences teaching that I’ll never forget, and I’m spiritually richer for it – but since I have the full faith and backing of an model/talent agency now-
oh wait, I never wrote about that, did I? I will…
…since I have agency representation now, I’ll be free to get up every morning and go to the gym for a good two hours and BURN OFF THESE TWENTY POUNDS I’VE MANAGED TO PUT ON OVER THE PAST YEAR!!!! I’m telling you, it sneaks up on you man. You gotta watch it. And the funny thing is, I’ve been working out! I saw my pictures from a show I did last month, and I’ll now look at them every day to remind me that I may be cute, but if I’m gonna get any work I had better stop being so self-indulgent.
So if my claim is tapped out, I’ll have to grind harder for my bread. I’ve got to get new pictures ASAP, and the way my body photographs right now just won’t do. I used to be a much more disciplined eater. I don’t do diets, and when I fast/cleanse, it’s for the health of my body and not for losing weight: I’m all about being proactive about my physical health, is all. Just a couple years ago, I was doing much better. It’s not just that I was much slimmer, it’s that I felt like I could fly, run, and jump off anything; and it was that I knew that I didn’t have much money but I had my happiness and health. I fell off the wagon. I’ve been eating much more bread, cheese, and processed food with no quarterly fasting breaks, and eating after 8pm (damn you, Europe!!). Just because I’m vegetarian and eat better than most people doesn’t mean I can do whatever I want. I don’t have “one of those metabolisms”. So although I don’t do the resolution thing, I am wiping the slate clean and going back to my better habits starting tomorrow (I’m on a Delta flight right now).
The superduperohsoswellI’msohappyyay upside to being cut off from my unemployment and therefore quitting LAUSD is I’ll now have time to work in my art studio I’m renting now! I’ve already started work on a project that I first conceived exactly one year ago, but couldn’t really get a move on because of lack of space. That Smirnoff commercial I did was a blessing not just in the sense that I got a nice chunk of money, but that I have been enabled to do what I’ve been purposed to do in life. I can now afford studio rent and a few equipment purchases here and there, and I suspect that my current project will be done by the middle of the month. I’m so excited!
So I guess the point in writing all this is now that it’s all on the intertubes, I can’t renege now. I’m not trying to lose 20 pounds by the end of the month because that would be ridiculous. What I’m going to do is reclaim my better habits so that I can have that flying feeling again, and the side effect will be that my bosoms won’t be bursting through my clothes anymore and this muffin top that’s trying to be born will recede, and in turn I’ll look better in my new pictures, which should result in bookings for well-paid work, which will fund not only my living expenses but my career ones too, so then I don’t have to worry about being cut off from my unemployment claim anymore.
Updates here and there, now and then, soon to follow.
I know I know, I’m almost three weeks late with my debriefing. And it’s not like I have a good excuse, either. It’s not like I have a JOB or anything. I want to go stream-of-consciousness here with this, so bear with me.
JESUS it was cold! My friend and I wanted to go have a nice and fancy-schmancy dinner but it didn’t work out the way we planned, but that’s okay because PRINCE!!!
Anyway, there were two opening acts that were pretty great. The first was a young lady named Esperanza Spalding; she’s a jazz singer and plays the bass cello, and her bass guitar player was hot-t-t-t-t. Yaaayyyiissss, chile… Her ‘fro needs its own zip code. Visit her website, she’s terribly talented. And the second act was Lalah Hathaway, Donny Hathaway’s daughter. She was beautiful, and her set was really nice, although she didn’t “break it down” like we were expecting. I bought a t-shirt for the low-low price of $40. Hey, can you blame me? You better not try! Before the show started, they were showing Finding Nemo on the JumboTron with bastardized elevator music smooth jazz playing on the speakers. Surreal. The stage was in the shape of The Artist’s symbol. Our seats were okay, I’m remembering how he emerged from below the stage as the band played this church-ey number and his backup singers got down at the very beginning. It was electric. It was magic. His perfect, smooth skin glowed, his voice was on point, his dance moves were bad as ever, and he played the hell out of that guitar! My homegirl and I screamed like pre-teen fangirls and I was dancing in the aisles (and was soon rebuffed by an usher). To the best of my recollection, here are the songs he and his crew did, not in chronological order:
… and a few more that I think I’m forgetting. It was all very spiritual. I almost cried. He didn’t play “Let the Rain Fall Down” or “Dirty Mind” – my two personal favorites right now – but I’m sure that’s forgivable. For so long, he wouldn’t even play old songs because of his religious convictions. Ever since he divorced his last wife, though, he seems to have loosened up quite a bit. My mom says she doesn’t like Prince “because he’s nasty.” When you press her on it, she says “You know what I mean!” I told her that she’s not allowed at any showings of my artwork. Of course, being the prude that she is (though always lovable), she’s talking about Prince’s highly sexual and gender-bending lyrics and ways of old. To her, if that’s the subject matter of your music nearly forty years ago, then no matter how you evolve down the line, you should always be judged according to your earlier work, and of course sexual = wrong. SMH. This is why she’s not allowed to view my work. It’s highly provocative and explicit, and sometimes visceral (if I have my way and get into grad school), and I don’t want to have to keep smelling salts on my person with which to revive my mother and her oh-so-delicate disposition. Back to The Kid. At least one of those guitar solos had to have gotten me pregnant, I’m just gonna wait and see. In any other circumstance I’d verify with several pregnancy tests and swallow the schmushmortion pill promptly, but Prince is the only man whose child I would bear. His show was in three sections, each with it’s own costume change of course! Can we take a second and ponder his beautiful physical body? Christ, that dude is the same age as my parents, and he hasn’t aged not. one. bit. My parents are really good looking for their age too, but damn! His muscles, his skin, his 3 inch boot heels and perfect coif… le siiiggghhh… I’ll tell you what, it ain’t nothin’ like a manly man who ain’t a-skeered of being his own effeminate self. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever had the chance to meet him, but I’m sure it would involve hyperventilation on my part. It was really interesting seeing all the people who had come out to see Prince. It was all ages, all races, and seemingly all kinds of backgrounds represented. That’s the true mark of an artist – the ability to keep it real within yourself and in your work, and at the same time touch many others from all walks of life. It’s what every artist should strive for, in my humble opinion. All in all, I had an excellent time. I don’t get to see my homegirl that often, and when I saw the concert dates announced in the New York/Newark area announced and realized I actually had money in the bank for once, I though of her immediately. We go all the way back to the 9th grade – a long time for me because we moved around a lot in my awkward years.
In conclusion, I’ll now be stalking that bass player ‘cause DAYUM he’s fine!
I write from seat 15F on a Virgin America to JFK. Just 8 hours ago, I completed the first part of my graduate application to UCLA. Upon landing, I will take the A to Penn Station, and the New Jersey Transit to Penn Jersey. I will then greet my friend Ashley by skipping, jumping up and down while clapping ecstatically and screaming. Because tomorrow night, we’re gonna go see
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
ASSLESS CHAPS!! ASSLESS CHAPS!!
In case you didn’t know, protective styling is key for black women for ultimate healthiness and growth. I do this a lot myself – I’ll do 6 flat twists and keep them in 4 – 5 days at a time. But that gets boring super quick because if you know me, you know I LOVE to style my hair every which a-way and every single day. That’s why I got a sew-in half-weave this summer. I kept it in for two and a half months. When I took it down, my braided down hair had grown quite a lot, but the hair that I kept “out” was heat damaged and shorter than the rest. In the long term, the end result was a negative. I want to rest and protect my hair for a while though, so that’s why I got me a wig.
HEEEEYYYYYY!!! The above – debut at a fashion show last night by Apartment3 – Unique LA. When I first bought the wig it was in curly soft corkscrew curls, so I got to work frizzing it out so it can look as much like my own hair as possible. I hope to make further progress in the quest for kinkyness.
This is the LaJay quick-weave by Vanessa. I first heard about it while doing some hair tip surfing last week, and knew that it would be The Solution to my hair hibernation wants. Apparently, there’s only ONE store in all of Los Angeles that sells it, and that’s Victoria Wig on Vermont at 69th St. just south of Slauson. If you live elsewhere in our great United States (or even… the world!), visit the Vanessa website and you can send them a message asking for a list of stores in your area that purchase from them. Otherwise, you can order online, but I feel wary of ordering wigs online (that’s just me).
I never got a chance to wax poetic about my most favoritest radio station ever in the history of radio stations, so although this is 18 months after the fact, I would like to pay tribute to Indie 103.1.
The concept of the station was music for music lovers delivered by music makers with very little playlisting (in the beginning). Before this station, I had never heard of X, had never heard a single Elvis Costello song, had only heard maybe 2 or 3 punk songs, had never heard of the New York Dolls, would never have been exposed to country music that I could enjoy, would never have known of MGMT, MIA, or LCD Soundsystem (you can keep Vampire Weekend, though – blegh).
Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols hosted a show every day called “Jonesy’s Jukebox”, and he played his favorite tunes and made some up on the spot while hosting awesome indie/alternative guests. The “Mighty Morning Show” was hosted by Dickie Barrett of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and MAN was his show good! The topics and guests were ALWAYS interesting, he started a thing called “Tat-Tuesday” where musicians and others would get tattooed live in studio during the show (and if he couldn’t find anyone, he would get one himself). Barrett was pretty funny, and I learned about a lot of music on his show that I’d NEVER would have heard of in any other context. One of my favorite shows was “Camp Freddy Radio”, hosted by Dave Navarro, Donovan Leitch, Matt Sorum, and Billy Morrison (I may be forgetting someone). Who would have thought that Dave Navarro was so frickin’ funny? He and his bandmates had great chemistry and their shows were always entertaining, and they played great music. For a long while, Rob Zombie had an evening show that he hosted with his wife, which was entertaining just for the sheer fact that Rob Zombie is an ornery-ass dude. And if you enjoy listening to Henry Rollins on NPR right now, you can thank Indie for that. He hosted a show once a week called “Harmony in my Head”, and it was wonderful because even if you didn’t all like the music he played, you had to get high off of his sheer frenetic energy and passion. He curated his shows. A few of my other favorite shows was “Watusi Rodeo”, “Feel My Heat”, and “Head Trip” with Christian B.
In the beginning of Indie’s history, they were very anti-corporate, sticking it to bland-ass KROQ in every way, playing real music, having original ideas (visit here for a complete rundown on the history of the station). They covered the waterfront when it came to different music genres – reggae, indie, alternative, punk, country, metal, Latin alternative, old shit, new shit. As time went on, though, you noticed a change. The suits running the station started to enforce more of a commercial-friendly playlist during the times that the featured/themed shows weren’t on. I woke up one morning to find that Dickie Barrett’s gravelly voice would no longer be gracing my eardrums – he had been fired over some BS. In my opinion, it all went downhill from that. Barrett was replaced by Joe Escalante, a member of The Vandals and host of the Friday show “Barely Legal Radio” where he would give advice pertaining to entertainment law. That dude was boring as FUCK!!! (sorry Mommy, but it’s true and there’s no other way to express that)
Shows were being dropped here and there, and then all of a sudden, they were gone. 103.1 is now El Gato. I still keep a memory button in my car dedicated to the frequency. There were a lot of theories as to why it happened, but the one that seemed to make the most sense to me had to do with ratings (Conan O’Brien, anyone?). Apparently, Arbitron changed the way they were measuring radio ratings, and according to their new system, people weren’t listening, meaning advertisers would see that data and forego buying ad space. This isn’t true, though; hundreds of thousands of people were listening, just not in the way that they were measuring: it’s like they had never heard of the internet! Nevertheless, Indie is no longer here, and that’s that.
I loved the hell out of Dickie Barrett and Steve Jones, they drove that station and made it as cool as it got. Warm feelings toward old white dudes I’ll never meet, and others. Rest In Peace, Indie, you rarely let me down and I’m culturally richer as a result of your efforts. Pouring a belated glass of red wine out on the curb for you, my friend.
PS – they’re online, but it’s not the same, dammit!
PPS – Jonesy’s Jukebox is now on KROQ (ew!) every Sunday for a couple hours in the evening. I haven’t checked it out yet. I should, because I love that dude. But that would involve me having to actually listen to KROQ…
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