freestylin'

Last night Kelly and I saw the Roots play one of only a few dates out all year. Two shows in DC, a couple here, a couple there.

It was true freestylin', a sincere and deep understanding of music played out as if they were playing a small club in Philly. These guys like (playing) live and live likes them.

The sincerity driven by a co-bass arrangement with a sousaphone and electric bass and accentuated by their flamboyant guitarist and expressive keyboardist (where was the other?).

All this rests under the voice and rhythm and it is from that interplay, that the actual voice of the band, or rather, the man who keeps the time, emerges.

Check him out on Twitter @questlove or go here.

Brilliant musician. Fantastic night

How 'bout a little taste.

The World just chugs along

When I was a kid my best friend Mike Hudson and I created an unspoken bond of observing how obvious guys were. Guys on TV or guys from the mall. Later that "philosophy" grew to both men and women (girls and boys)  and we ended up reducing the essence of that which was obvious female and male to something unpronounceable as words but recognizable upon witnessing. To that end, anyone within the DC area who knows me is free to ask and I will both perform and explain their individual meanings.

Oddly though as we both grew older and geographically apart we seemed to stay a little too close to the "me vs. them" attitude we developed regarding how we saw ourselves in regards to women as well as the guys I was supposedly competing with.

At this point I stop talking as if I know how Mike feels so the rest is me.

I think it's just amazing that it took me this long to realize the false set of standards I helped to set and what they meant to me. Not false in a bad way, more like realizing that the line I drew wasn't that far off the line most everyone else walked but because of my choice I seemed to miss out on some things that I find myself envious of in the immediate and others that open wider thoughts that glide towards the temptations of memory.

I also understand the true and unmeasurable benefits that have always come my way because I am the man I am, even up to the present. Dunno, maybe it's like something I wrote in a diary twenty years ago (so be kind), "Everyone thinks the grass is always greener .... (you know) and I all I want to be the grass under the fence."

Seems sometimes in order to realize you're the grass under the fence you have to peer over the side yourself from time to time, just to be reminded.

Gimme, gimme, gimme

Just left Chuck E Cheese where I has left a leather jacket that someone actually returned.
Score: 1/2 - 1/2 in favor of decency because when they called to let me know the jacket was there they said "Great! Any chance to get you back into this vortex of shrillness!"

Waiting patiently in line for manager when this little, pudgy kid cuts in front and says to the poor kid working for nothing, "Gimme this, gimme that..." No, excuse me sir or anything.

Dad comes up, observes, and says nothing.

Score 2 1/2 - 1/2 current tally in favor of selfishness.

Conclusions?

Gay marriage

When I was living in San Francisco we had two friends, Brian and Sylvain who lived nearby and would throw the best dinner parties.

Brian, who was from California was the flamboyant one whereas Sylvain, who was from France, was the steady, responsible one. They were two really nice guys who were in love and enjoying the successes of their lives.

One day we got a call that Sylvain had had a brain aneurysm and his chance of survival was minimal. He was 33 at the time. We all took turns at the hospital in order to allow Brian to get himself together as well as home stuff AND the possibility that he might lose his love.

Why this backstory? Because, it turns out that Sylvain recovered with only some minor speech and motor skill loss and Brian, who up to this point had been the first one to belly up to the bar or to roll certain leaves in paper IMMEDIATELY transformed and became the responsible one and I was witness to one of the most loving relationships I've ever seen. One of true sacrifice and tenderness.

I think of them whenever some sheep headed religioso tries to tell me that God hates gays and lesbians and that it is against his law to marry. In those two men I saw more love and compassion than a van full of church goers and their narrow, judging ways.

And hey, if everything they say turns out to be true and that we're all wrong then may I cut ahead in line for Hell because screw that kind of Heaven.

What do you think?

Not that I want to become a walking set of Loteria cards but before I had the little Devil put on my right arm I was going to get this one. But first, a little back story.


My Dad had tats all over. He even had a huge Clipper ship on his chest which must have hurt like a MF.

Anyway, on his arm he had a topless Hawaiian grass dancer that I used to stare at when I was a little kid and it's because of that I was thinking of Sirena.

I think she's really cool and am thinking of doing it soon.

What do you think?