Hip Hop Is Not On The Radio!!!

I really am not sure what to post about today. It's Thursday Thirteen so I am going to post about a few odd things hopefully adding up to 13. Thanks to Goofy girl for sexy logo above.

REPRESENT+RESPECT+RECOGNIZE

1) Two nights in a row I stayed up way too late, Tuesday I was awake because i was figuring out Christmas holiday events. How are we going to see everyone and get around. It was like a crazy puzzle, but I think Stagg and I finally figured it out. But I couldn't sleep.

2)Last night we saw an amazing concert, absolutley one of those times seeing live music where you feel you are in the best spot in the city seeing the best act. It was a massive group concert including DJ Cool, Red Man. Supernatural, Raekwon( I heart Wu Tang Clan), and a surprise addition Ghostface Killah, and a bunch of others. At one point Raekwon and thirty others on stage all at once performed lots of Wu-Tang Clan it felt like we were outside...and a rare feeling, it felt like I was onstage with them, it was so overwhelming and fun! Smith and Weston opened up the show and rocked the house. DJ Cool and most of the performers took turns performing and djing. DjCool told us it was old school night and he wasn't going to spin anything past 1995, the crowd went wild.

3) Yesterday I met a friends new babies for the first time. He and his partner adopted them one month ago and they are six months old. No, I didn't take a photo...I will. They were in two little swings when I got to his place and they have such different personalities right away. Their names are Cole and Parker and both have jet black hair, and Parker's stands up straight just like a riot! These little boys are already warm and safe and have a beautiful home to grow up in. Even their cribs are gorgeous and toys are everywhere. Their daddies are so blessed and are going to belss these kids. We need to have the law protect these little boys so that each of their parents can be legally recognized to go to PTA, hospitals and travel. These little boys were in an orphanage only a month ago, and now they live in a beautiful loving American home. Their parents should be allowed to be married. See my other thoughts here for gay marriage.

4) I recorded and watched the Madonna tv special three times now. It is one of the best concerts movies ever made. I always had Truth or Dare in my fave concert movie tp ten lists, but this beats it for dancing and themes and cinematography. and the songs make you dance, even in front of the tv! I would post a uTube movie, but I can't figure out how to fill out the membership. So here is a photo from my tv.

I get some sort of perverse pleasure posting photos of me watching tv. It's probably because when I had my blofg "humped" a review (see side bar if you want your blog reviewed, it's a logo of a camel) and the reviewer hated that I posted pictures of my tv. So this makes me laugh. By the way, I toppled that blog reviewer months ago with my technorati rank. So there.


5) We are part of a group show this sSunday. If you are in the Chicago area and feel like dropping by on sunday between 4 and 7 p.m. here is where we will be, at The Uptown Recording Studios.

6) It just occured to me that I need to figure out something to wear on Sunday for this shindig. Yikes. There will be wine and cheese served. Which reminds me...

7) Stagg often says these amazing things to me. Oh, in case you don't know Stagg is my boyfriend and also an artist. Here are some of his paintings.

8) god, I'm just cheating here huh, stretching out the definition of a thirteen point list...hey we'll leave this as is...I'll countit as #8 because I am seriously wondering in my sleep dep state if I can come up with 13 things rational to say today.

9) I need more caffeine.

10) Back to Stagg saying some amazing things that make me think. We were kind of joking and talking about wine and cheese at the opening on Sunday. Two things I particularily enjoy by the way. Hey I enjoy wine and cheese...that's # 10.

11) Stagg says he thinks the reason wine and cheese are so often associated with art openings and served is because both of them are aged. We were crossing the street ont he way to the concert last night, and I was like..."Did you just think of that, is that a fact, or something you came up with?" He said, "I just thought of that now". I was like, "You're absolutely right, you know That is the kind of thinking that anthropologists use and literary criticism and film criticsm uses. You are on to something" I was just so blown away by this observance of his...I may make some future post about the metaphors and association. I admire a food writer, Margetret Visser. she calls her self an anthropologist of daily life, and her work is riddled with historic and metaphor histories of food. Check out Margeret Visser. Her books make an excellent gift for any foodies in your life. For example, on table manners. I also recommend her books Much Depends On Dinner, The Rituals of Dinner and The Way We Are. Here, "I refuse to accept the ordinary as dull," Visser writes. Quite so. In her take on bells, we discover they were rung to "tell the townsfolk to cover their fires and retire for the night. (The word in French was couvre-feu, which becomes curfew in English.)" Or that men shake hands with their right hands because "it showed peace and benevolence: you had no intention of drawing your sword." Or that long ago, the wedding cake was broken over the bride's head. "This invoked fertility," writes Visser, "as where brides. . .are showered with rice, 'many small things,' signifying a fecund future."

12) Someone had made a t-shirt with the words "hip hop is not on the radio" at the concert last night and threw one on stage for Red Man. He picked it up and said "You are speaking some truth here". He went on about how hip hop has been pushed to the sides and radio songs are not real hip hop they are watered down and corporate slick weak versions of the really powerful songs made outside the mainstream. He said now hip hop is marketed as a materialistic lifestyle, we need to get back to the music as hip hop originally was and still is, but the radio doesn't play the earhty more spiritual and love oriented music. Well, he said a lot, and a lot of other incredible and powerful songs and stories were shared. It was really the place to be. If you get a chance to see this platform, do it.

13) Well, that's the best I can do today. Here are my 13 posts, such as they are. (hey Asterisk) I know I talked too much, and thanks to any of you who managed to survive this mammoth post and slepp deprived ramblings. I am going to now visit some other blogs and watch Regis and Kelly which I recorded and watch every day. I love Regis he cracks me up. Watched him for over twenty years every morning. Makes me smile.


I want to take an hour or two to work on this painting today. Because of our show on Sunday, I have been toying with how to present my paintings. I don't want them framed and under glass. If I wanted them on canvas I would have made them on canvas. The thing is, I like that I use recycled materials. We've already got work we're showing that is finished, and mine is made from grocery bags. I just want to put clips on them and nail them up. I was tressing about this and Stagg said John Cage said there are too many paintings and water colours in the world that should be freed from thsir boxes and frames. I agree. A watercolour (which esencially is what I paint with...? I water down my paints a lot and they look wet when finished too...) wasn't made for glass frames. The reflection of glass takes away from the pigment in the paints. I figure an owner of the artwork can decorate their home however they like with art work...and why don't more people have raw ar on their walls? So I will likely decide on some kind of clip and nails to hang my paintings. Again, wish me luck. any ideas on presentation?



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