Ah, freestylin.’ The great social leveler. From gallant kings to lowly serfs, the freestyle is a gift for all to be opened, then loathed, detested and quickly deposited to the depths from which she sprung. I learned how to freestyle at Skylake Yosemite summer camp when I was a ten year-old wannabe. One of the older kids, Andy Samberg (of Lazy Sunday fame), taught me and a small coterie of friends the Art of the Rhyme. (ED: And yes he was the funniest fuckin’ kid at camp. He would do things like scream and whip out his cock during basketball right as you were taking a shot. He was also one of the nicest, most down to earth kids and everybody loved that fucker).

Anywho, I realized in college that nobody and I mean nobody should ever freestyle. Ever. That isn’t to say that I didn’t sidle up to the cipher when the mood struck and the beat dropped, but I recognized (probably later than I should have) that the whole thing was really really lame. And I plus I always kind of a loser. So a loser kid freestyling is the zenith of lame. But I’ve always had a relationship with words and blurbs (snap, that shit was organic yo!) so I flexed this muscle on occasion, but I always felt a post-freestyle sense of remorse and regret like picking up and following through on that late night call you know you shouldn’t be.

So…I was at a party this past weekend that featured an all-age smattering of feral New Yorkers. One of those loft parties where you’ll find a fifty something “artist” walking around barefoot with designer jeans and a tunic talking about Peter Max and the beauty of the 7” in one corner and a group of E’d up highschoolers drawing the four symbols of Led Zeppelin on their battered chuck Taylors in another. Somewhere off to the corner I saw the signs of the freestyle cipher: backpacks, headbobbing and white people. I was talking to this girl and she mentioned we should check it out. All of a sudden the girl I was with jumped in and started freestylin.’ What is she doing ? I asked myself. I thought this girl was, um, not really lame. And her attempt, oh man was it tiger excrement. The record (or the kid beat-boxing) halted to a scratch and she just kept going. I felt embarassed cos she kept going and everyone was snickering and she was a really nice girl who just needed a good long look in the mirror and a copy of Aceyalone’s All Balls Don’t Bounce. So, to my absolute displeasure I jumped in to save her with a rambling freestyle about women and rapping (‘they should stick to hand clapping’) to try to make light of the awkward situation and hand her a rope to climb out of the ditch she continued to dig. Plus, I don’t mind making a fool of myself and I’m used to being laughed at. But of course, as things tend to go for me, after we walked away, completely oblivious to what had transpired, she told me what a “fucking asshole” I was for interrupting her and embarrassing her in front of all those people. Now it’s official. I will never string together consecutive words in a lyrical and spontaneous manner for the rest of my life. Not even for the small possibility of sex with a girl I’m only marginally attracted to. And that’s a promise.

This may just be my favorite Gothamist headline ever:

Lesbo Sluts Run Wild at Stuyvesant High!

I’m sure this is happening at jobs everywhere. People are setting up camp in one office to discuss last nights episode of 24. Forget work, forget conference calls – this is serious shit! There will also be follow up discussions in the conference room at lunchtime. I’ll be eating solo today.

Personally, I don’t watch the show. I’ve tried a few times because some of my friends tune in, but the show just doesn’t do it for me. Besides, I can’t bring myself to sit down for an hour on a Monday night to watch Jack Bauer and friends. Yes I know, that’s a bad excuse with TiVo.

I did tune in with some friends one night and the only thing that excited me was that the President (at least I think that’s who it was) had an Eames Lounge and a Nelson Lamp. At least they have good furniture taste.

I will stick with watching MY one TV guilty pleasure – the L Word. Sadly, no one wants to discuss that show with me on a Monday morning.
Lighten up people!

Cities globally have a unique flavor that is only found in that city. Every city differs from one another. But then a lot of them are also the same. Similarities can be geographical, cultural, or just the hubris that comes from being the “city”.

Can you define what it means to call NYC a city. How can you capture all that NYC stands for in a single sentence. And then if you can do that, have you come across any city that brings about the same metaphors one associates with NYC.

Why these questions ? Because i think of this city, 8000 miles away. A city that is both financial capital and entertainment capital of the country. A city that has the same “care a damn attitude”. A city where people come to make their dreams a reality.

As a metblogs author on two cities, I wil run a series of posts highlighting the “sister act” between NYC and this other city.

If you know what I am talking about, leave your thoughts in the comments.

In New York, whenever you meet someone for the first time, the first question tends to be ” So, what do you do again?” Followed by a nod of approval, a look of admiration or simple confusion. Of course there is what you do, what you want to do, and what you would never want to do.

I’ve done all the above.

However, everyone I know who lives in New York is doing something, wants to do something, and more likely than not, will do something. (eventually)

I hope I’m one of them. Thanks for letting me join the New York crew.

In general, the answer to the above question is a strict “NO!”, but I just can’t help myself. The weather here in NYC right now is so damn insane. Here’s some photographic evidence:

This photo was taken the last week of January 2005, on my street. It was about 2 days after the blizzard, so if I had to guess the date was January 26th 2005.

Almost exactly a year later, we’ve got today. If you’ve been outside you know people are walking around without jackets. I saw a guy on the train wearing shorts–SHORTS I tell you! Alas I have no pics of today’s majesty, but you can check out the high temp after the jump.
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On the subway this morning, completely engrossed in the book I was reading, I reached out to grab hold of one of the bars, and instead grabbed firmly onto a woman’s hand.

Embarrassed, I quickly let go, looked up, smiled sheepishly, and apologized.

She smiled warmly, said it was ok, and went back to her thoughts.

And suddenly, all I wanted was to hold her hand for the rest of our brief commute together.

GTA San Andreas is being sued for hiding a sex game within the already raunchy contents. It made me think what a Williamsburg based GTA would include…musicians beating each other up for top billing rights at various venues; yoga party raves, vegan food battles; and obviously the sex part wouldn’t get any less raunchier.

I think I’ve found a new Photoshop project to work on to create the cover.

Like Doris, I was in Chinatown today, but my visit was mostly accidental. Since the L train isn’t running this weekend, I took the M in, and got out of the train at Canal to run some errands. When I saw all the red and purple puddles on the street (colored, I’m guessing, by the confetti), I remembered Doris’s earlier post about the Lunar New Year festivities, and decided to walk around with my camera.

Things seemed to be winding down, but I took a few photos, like this slightly blurry one of a girl playing with those party popper things that snap when thrown against a hard surface. I was surprised they worked on the wet sidewalk. The big tube-shaped firecrackers this woman was selling looked like fun, but since i have no idea how to set one off, I probably would’ve ended up shooting myself in the face with gobs of confetti. A few more photos are here.

I’m an agorophobe. I admit it. If I could spend the rest of my days in my apartment – with visitors of course – without getting cabin fever, I would. But yesterday and today I braved the outside world and went down to Chinatown to visit the Flower Market as well as the Firecracker Ceremony for the Lunar New Year.

After six years of living in the New York area and having gone to college here, I never had any interest in attending any Lunar New Year celebrations in Chinatown. In fact, I avoided such things altogether, hating crowds and loud noise and waiting around. So I thought this would be a good experience for me, as well as something to Metblog about besides how much people annoy me, which is, let’s face it, the basic theme of nearly all of my postings.

Well, who knew it’d be the theme of this posting as well.
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