I decide to call it a night. I hail a cab on the corner of Rivington & Clinton and tell the driver to take me to Brooklyn and use the Manhattan bridge. He asks me if he should take Myrtle and after I initially said Lafayette, I then changed to Myrtle as we’re coming off the bridge. We catch a red light right before Tillary and as the cab has slowed down to a virtual stop, BOOM a car rams right into us from behind, going damn fast. it spins the cab around two revolutions and then we crash into the concrete meridians and come to a stop.

These are my observations and thoughts from right before I got into the cab, til I left the hospital.

“If a situation can be bad, then Alcohol can make it worse. It can also make some OK situation, turn around and be really awesome….But alcohol really did ruin any semblance of fun that I could of had last night…..Lucky for me that I only had 2 drinks or the night could have really got ugly”

“It is equally difficult to go from lovers to friends or to go from friends to lovers…For real”

“The situation lacked the “my life passed in front of eyes” during the accident, but the crash sure felt slow and it gave me time to think about happiness and the pursuit of happiness along with love and it’s realness”

“If you open the cab door and see that the cab driver has a wheelchair on the front passenger side….his wheelchair, then perhaps it’s a good idea to take the next taxi”

“that discriminating against the disabled cabbie would have been kinda wack..he obviously passed a test or two and has been proven capable of safely operating the vehicle”

“that wearing a seatbelt was the best thing that I did all night! Front if you want, but with the impact of that accident, I would have been Leon Spinks in the face, still in the hospital or running around in public like the Elephant man ‘I am not an animal’”

“that if you’re a drunk driving, crashing into the back of cabs, making crazy accusations about the cabbie stopping at a green light….don’t try to punch the cabbie or instigate a fight”

“I had never been into an ambulance until last night. It’s everything I’ve seen on TV. In fact, an ambulance has to rank very highly with the things that i’ve seen sooooo many times before, but never actually been inside. That and a cave.”

“there are some decent police officers and emt workers that aren’t jaded and still show some compassion”

“getting a neck brace and head secured to a board not only stabilizes your head and spine, but it also leaves you vulnerable for the hospital workers to put your phone in your pocket and take out of your pocket a $50 bill….I SEE YOU HOSPITAL MAN, I want my money back you punk”

“Doctors are such a multinational and multi-ethinic crew…It’s like what Doctor king was talking about, just in the emergency room”

“it’s really cold in the hospital”

“That since I didn’t pay the fare after the accident, could that still be considered theft of services?

It was totally the drunk drivers fault. IF he wasn’t drinking, then he made all attempts to act drunk. Perhaps he was staying “in role” as a Broadway actor. Doubt it, he was fired up off of something!

The accident has left me a bit sore in my back and my ankle. I’ll live. I’m grinding it out everyday and am happy to be alive and kicking. Let’s get it….everything you want! Because you might die tomorrow…..likelier that you’ll survive if you wear your seat belt. Seat belt can’t save you from a bullet or getting run over by a speeding vehicle in mid-town Manhattan or from smoking cigarettes til things start to grow on your lungs……I never said seat belts were perfect.

Richard

February has seen way too much snow in 2010. It’s been the snowiest month in NYC since 1869. In 1869, the city purchased Hart Island from the Hunter family of the Bronx for $75,000. Hart island is now used as Potter’s field, where people with no money for a burial are laid to rest. What does that have to do with all of this frickin’ snow in February 2010?

I have no idea, though it might be a few homeless New Yorker’s that froze to death in the snow and may very well end up in Potter’s Field. Homelessness is so disgusting in America. It’s also a by-product of capitalism…..so if you like free-trade, open market, every man for themselves, reality TV sort of structure, then a homeless man is the face of its dark side.

All of the snow has created a sort of winter wonderland in New York City, with kids in Brooklyn out in Full Force. It’s so many white kids living in Clinton Hills/Bed-Stuy that I thought I was in another city for a minute. Boy were they having fun. I’m sure the teens that moved to Brooklyn, with their families, from Manhattan or somewhere in Massachusetts, didn’t think they could have so much fun in a city they heard was so dangerous……but Brooklyn is really fun in the snow. Though I walked for nearly Thirty minutes in the snow earlier in the month looking for a bottle of wine! Settled for a liquor store in Bed-Stuy, where the choice consisted of Yellow Tail, Barefoot, William Kendall and some other brand that liquor stores “think they can sell”. I settled on my all time favorite Spanish, value wine (read:cheap) Frontera!

So February presented me with a really awesome DJ schedule as I spun at the opening reception for the Gentrification Of Brooklyn exhibition at the MoCADA museum in Brooklyn, that was totally awesome. I also did spun at the “I Love Brooklyn” Day party at MoCADA, on Valentines Day, while doing double DJ duty at my DiscoBrunch event at Broadway East, which was excellent and featured some incredible designers in the Pop-Up Market.

I also was also pleased to DJ the Milliner’s Guild of New York’s, Fashion Week Show at Roommate Grace Hotel, which showed the most amazing hats in many different styles. It made me want to step my hat game up!

My friend JB came to NYC in February to help celebrate my birthday and take in as many Broadway show’s as possible before returning to Sweden. Birthdays have a way of starting deep introspection. Introspection that will inevitably lead you to some sort of downer trip that’s only salvageable through TMZ amounts of Whiskey and Bourbon.

JB and I went to dinner at No. 7 with Muonja, Carnaval party at SOB’s, brunch at Fat Hippo, bowling at Brooklyn Bowl and some good ole street strolling with his friend Fabiana.

He’s an awesome soul singer and has an ongoing Sunday event in Stockholm, where he’s been performing for Ten years running. He introduced me to a T-Shirt line that he and his brother are working on and gave me a Donny Hathaway version as a birthday gift. I see a bright future for those Tees Senor Joachim!

February, also, has clearly presented the reality that I have Writer’s block. I’ve been stuck in neutral, with all kinds of futility in fleshing out the story for my next novel. Until this month, I thought that perhaps it was simply developing slowly, but February was the deadline month for me and it is almost over. I’m stuck in the proverbial mud. That really blows! I’m still having fun selling my current novel, A Rendezvous With Destiny, and really love the feedback I get from readers.

I’ve also started an agency, with my partner Maurice Caple, to service all areas of interest in our lives; from Art to Marketing to Furniture Design to Artist Representation. So that effort has been pitch, pitch, pitch and more pitching. I like that part though!

So I close February with another DiscoBrunch this Sunday, February 28th, with the Pop-Up Market and SOULED OUT, an art exhibition of all new work from Jonathan Paul Wagner. It will be fun and it at least will take February out on a high note.

I hope February was good for you!

Truth be told, I have less patience for anything in the cold. A party is really low in the pecking order in regards to what I will wait in the cold for or to do.

I will not wait more than 10 minutes for anyone outside of anywhere, in the freezing cold. Each degree below 32 subtracts a minute. So at 30 degrees, I’m doing 8 minutes.

I will only wait the time it takes to smoke 1 cigarette for anyone that needs me to come out and pay for their cab….And I may use funny money, so just know that

I will not wait for anyone to finish their “American Spirit” cigarette, after I have finished mine. Those cigarettes burn slow, which is cool, but when it’s freezing cold outside….I’ll see ya back inside

I will come outside of a loud place to have a phone conversation, but I won’t be on the phone for more than three minutes…..unless something terrible has happened and then you get a few more minutes and perhaps I’ll just come to see you if it’s that bad.

I will not wait for a taxi for more than 10 minutes in the freezing cold…..if it’s still early enough to get on the train and I’m going home. If it’s after a night of partying then I’m out there as long as need be. It’s why I stopped going over to that horrid 27th street area many years ago, because getting a cab at the end of the night was impossible. PLUS the clubs were wack, so nixing that hood off my list was real easy.

I will not go to football games past the month of November. Hand warmers, mittens, long johns, those little hot ass rocks you put in your pocket……bite me, nothing is fun when you’re that cold. Nothing. Fun is had in warm weather and that’s just what it is.

I will not wait in line to have brunch at Tom’s in Brooklyn or Clinton Street Backery or any place for that matter, more than 5 minutes. Tom’s brings you cookies and coffee, but they never bring you a heater. Just roll out one of those big heaters they use in front of night clubs and I’m game. Then bring me cookies and coffee and we’re in business. Like I want a cookie when my hands and teeth are shivering?

I will not eat or drink in a restaurant or bar, where I have to keep on my outside coat just to stay warm. If you can’t heat the room to the point that I can remove my outer layer, then adios amigos. I’m not an Eskimo and don’t care to eat or dine like one. I don’t like when the sleeves of my coat gets dipped in reduction sauce.

Annnd

When I’m in a cab, I will not stay in the cab if it doesn’t have heat. I will get out and find another cab. I pay the fare of course, but I don’t get more than a few blocks before I gotta bail. If I was going back to brooklyn, and they offered a 20% non-heat discount, I might consider it. Especially If I just ate dinner with my coat on, I’d just lick my sleeves and think about warm weather.

P.s. I ended up back at No.7 for a nighcap that turned into 90 minutes! But of course

The empty shelves at Trader Joe’s resembled the cupboards in the homes of the customer’s who were greedily snatching the last boxes of vegetable broth. There was no more whole wheat penne pasta, no more whole wheat rice, no more whole wheat English muffins……there was no more whole wheat wheat! When did whole wheat become all the rage? Everything white was available; bread, pasta, rice, a few women cruising for some blizzard bump & grind.

They we’re all out of cage free, brown eggs, while the white eggs were stacked like that chick from The Hills after multiple surgi-enhancements. The conversation on the ridiculously long line was just as ridiculous. Line’s like “they say we might get 3 feet” and “I might not come out of the house for a few days”. Now, those lines might not initially sound ridiculous, but think about it.

If you’re purchasing enough groceries and dry goods to stock a catholic food pantry for a week (or the Octomom’s house for an afternoon), on the words of a meteorologist who says to expect 3 feet of snow, then you my friend, are stoopid! Not just dumb, but probably a hypocrite as well, because when the weatherman usually calls for rain, you don’t believe him. When he says evening showers, you say “funk that” and wear those blue suede shoes that all your friends loathe. You don’t trust him to predict something fairly simple like a few inches of rain, but suddenly, he’s smart enough to accurately predict multiple feet of snow. So how’s that work in other areas of life? The contractor that botches the remodeling of your front porch is the contractor you entrust to build your new home?

The line “I might not come out of the house for a few days” makes no sense for this current job climate, because everybody knows that there ain’t no snow days when the unemployment rate is so high. Here’s how the conversation goes:

YOU “Hi Mr. Simpson, I’m not going to be able to make it to work today because of the snow”
MR. SIMPSON “You’re fired……Mary, get me HR on the line”

So all of the people in Trader Joe’s were either self-employed, unemployed, underemployed or just frickin’ rich and wealthy, in which case you SHOULD NOT buy up the last of the cage free, brown eggs!

(p.s. the snow is really coming down now so forget everything I said)

As the sound system was being set up for the reception, I became keenly aware that I knew nothing about sound systems. I’m a lounge/nightclub DJ and normally just bring my computer and plug into the venue’s system, Serato box included. As Fritz and I was running into several snags in setting up, I started to think of the possibility that I might not have it together by the 6pm opening and would be met with derision and possibly a tossed egg, launched by a angry “gentrifier” who didn’t appreciate how the exhibition was depicting his presence in Brooklyn, USA!

At 5:58pm, everything came together (Fritz is the man) and I was spinning the first song at 5:59pm and then we were on our way. By 6:30pm, the place was crowded. By 6:45pm it was nearly at capacity and by 7:15pm, it was a raucous crowd outside who couldn’t enter because MoCADA was already at capacity. I saw the exhibit’s curator, Dexter Wimberly, looking super smart and answering questions with the proper amount of Art finesse and Brooklyn hubris. The food and wine donated by the super dudes Tyler and Matt from No. 7 Restaurant was being devoured by a gregarious, mixed group of art lovers, scene makers, Brooklyn repping, Manhattan traveling, politically motivated, party people…….all rocking heavy to my set! I was killing it while having my flick shot by a potpourri of picture takers. Asian folks, old black men, mixed race kids with their parents, shy white women that also purchased my novel at the reception.

It was crazy! Then the love love of my life came in and brought it up a notch, looking beautiful and super hot and then more camera people started shooting her and I together like Peaches and Herb, Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian…….Jim Edwards and his chic of the moment. Then it was over. I then took the time to walk around the exhibition and see the art…………the show is awesome! I suggest you see it with some friends and also bring that acquaintance that you don’t often talk to because the exhibition, about an explosive topic. should illicit conversation between folks that don’t think alike or run in the same circles. Run see dat! And check out some flicks from the reception here: Exhibition

I have an energy about me that’s very Monday. I’m working from a coffee shop and for the first hour that I was here, It was all that I can do to not doze off. It could have something to do with reading the first section of the NYT with my cup of coffee, but it was some interesting stories in there today…..which was Tuesdays paper. I didn’t even get a chance to discuss the Grammy awards with anyone. I didn’t even read about the Grammys yesterday and was totally in the dark about who won or who made a fool of themselves. Found out today that it was all about Beyonce and Taylor Swift. I think those two will be forever bound, with the connector in conversation being Kanye. Wasn’t sure if Kanye went to the awards….seems he’s low-key nowadays!

I guess it’s because I had my DiscoBrunch on Sunday that it all flew over my head. In the last two weeks, television has been conspiring to keep DiscoBrunch down. First Winter version of DiscoBrunch and the Jet’s we’re playing in the AFC Championship game, for the first time since the subway costs, like Fifty Cents, so that was stay and watch TV day. Then yesterday, the Grammy’s had the best numbers in several years, with nearly 26 million people staying home to watch it….or going to Grammy parties to watch it. Then next week is the Superbowl…….BUT I don’t do DiscoBrunch next week, so I have successfully fooled the TV industry and their conspiracy against DiscoBrunch. Though the next DSCB is smack in the middle of Fashion week, but that’s a good thing.

I am now just accepting that today is Tuesday and I feel like the new guy at the party.

It will be awesome. The street artists Specter is already getting a lot of buzz for his scathing billboards. CHeck this link:Street Artst Specter’s Work For Gentrification Of Brooklyn“
I expect lots of flammable discussion in the room during the reception, but please, resist the urge to shout someone down!

Exhitition Link:MoCada Museum

So I’m back at it and hopefully it will be on a regular basis.  Same blog content, ramblings, images from my Blackberry Tour (it used to be an iphone, that’s one of the things that has changed over the 1yr 9months!…..It works though, because the new BB Tour has a way improved camera) and funny stories.

I also have a blog for my novel and another general blog. Damn, I gotta get to those as well.

I’m off, though I’ll be back. Trying to not let life stress me out because I’ve been hitting the ciggies kinda hard recently in response to the stress……and I don’t wanna get those Obama smoker lips!

Definitely not lacking in drama, the two stars of the show have beat each other to a pulp, uncovered each others warts and brought out an avalanche of voters for the primary. They have spurred 30 million democrats to get involved and cast their vote like a political version of American Idol or better yet, dancing with the stars, the way both candidates have tried to nimbly dance around some of their issues.

Who needs NFL’s Jason Taylor doing the Rumba when you have potential candidates for the presidency of the United States of America performing various shuffles, jumps and spins. Hilary Clinton, in particular has done a series of spins that flowed seamlessly into the wiggly worm whenever she was pressed into a corner.

It was reality show magic to watch Obama’s nifty “Rev. Wright Watusi”, though his “Guns & Religion Robot” was definitely must-see TV. Hilary’s “Bosnian Back-Track” was quite clumsy, which is why she received such a low score. Her dance partner, Bill, was also a sore spot, missing his cues and going left when she went right.

Unfortunately, like all reality shows, SOMEBODY IS GOING HOME, yet unlike other reality shows, the loser in this show is resigned to staying put and not let the camera roll while she walks into the sunset; or the rented limo. It’s the emotional and climatic element of reality TV that is owed to the public. It’s the emotional pay-off for the viewers, like when the guy gets the girl in the movies. People want to empathize with the losing contestants of reality shows, while others want to rub the defeat in the loser’s face and since Hilary has come off as the villain, it’s surely tons of folks looking forward to doing the latter. It’s time for Hilary to pack her things, hug her friends, supporters and staff, and shed some made for TV tears, because I deserve the pay-off damn it!

And if she simply refuses to leave, we can always have the Sandman from Amateur Night At The Apollo officially remove her from the stage!

I’ve never played with the scrubs. Nobody actually thinks that they are a scrub, so maybe I did. Maybe I was actually the scrub and just didn’t know it.

But regardless, let’s start this. It’s a daily operation, staying off of the scrubs court both literally and actually. I suggest for the change of season, that we all get on our point in our own particular way and high beam the scrub life. That’s unless you’re a true scrub, which is rare!

And vote for Barama (Duh!)