connecting*the*dots

(direct link to the first pod of the seven part series)

From 2000 to 2003, I lived just down the road from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, first in Park Slope and then Gowanis.

As consistently penetrating as the New York City media is, not once did I even hear a whisper about the toxic issues my former neighbors in Williamsburg have been dealing with for decades now.

Instead, I reveled in the culture. Now I’m thinking, at what cost?

Gotta love that “self-interest” angle of capitalism, eh?

UPDATE: I’m currently watching part 6 of this 7 part series. Be sure to watch it all. It’s beyond disturbing. Greensboro residents are worried about strip clubs? Try living next to Radiac Research Corporation — a nuclear storage facility, where the radiation level can be pick up from a geiger counter flipped on at the front door.

It also resides across the street from an elementary school.

Scary stuff and great reporting.

My good friend David Bartel of DeepSoundChannel is performing this Saturday, October 14th at 11pm at Goodbye Blue Monday in Brooklyn, NY.

David’s an incredibly talented composer and musician; if you’re free Saturday night and dig futuristic, ambient, electronica, be sure to check him out.

photo by Caviar

Beautiful days like this have me reminiscing Brooklyn…

Associated Press
Theater Pulls Trailer for ‘United 93′

NEW YORK - A New York City movie theater has pulled the trailer for “United 93,” which chronicles in real time the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed into a Western Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11.

The AMC Loews Lincoln Square 12 theater in Manhattan said it made the decision after viewers complained they found it too upsetting.

“I don’t think people are ready for this,” theater manager Kevin Adjodha said.

“One lady was crying,” Adjodha told Newsweek. “She was saying that we shouldn’t have played the trailer. That this was wrong.”

Universal Studios in Los Angeles, meanwhile, said it would go ahead with plans to show the trailer for the thriller, which is scheduled to open in theaters on April 28.

Adam Fogelson, Universal’s president of marketing, said the trailer would be shown only before R-rated movies or “grown-up” PG-13 ones.

“The film is not sanitized or softened, it’s an honest and real look” at the events of Flight 93, Fogelson told The New York Times in Tuesday editions. “If I sanitized the trailer beyond what’s there, am I suggesting that the experience will be less real than what the movie itself is? We as a company feel comfortable that it is a responsible and fair way to show what’s coming.”

“United 93″ is scheduled to make its world premiere on opening night at the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan.

The festival, which was created to help lower Manhattan recover economically from the attacks, begins April 25 and runs through May 7.

The trailer begins with images of passengers boarding the plane on a sunny morning, and builds to a disturbing scene that includes actual news video of a plane about to hit one of the World Trade Center towers. It then returns inside Flight 93 as terrorists begin hijacking it and a passenger calls his family to tell them of the impending disaster.

The Families of Flight 93 have said that Universal Pictures will donate 10 percent of the first three days’ grosses to the memorial.

Where to begin? I guess I could start with my absolute disdain for the philathropic smokescreen Universal is attempting with their pathetic 10% donation of the first three days gross (that makes my last 401k plan of a 25% match up to 6% look charitable), but that’s not my major issue.

What fucking asshole decided to make this film? If you’re someone that considers 9/11 to be historically synonymous to Pearl Harbor, how ready do you think America circa 1946 would’ve been for a similar flick? America had already wrapped up WWII (while bombing Japan to hell in the process) yet I’d bet that the raw nerve of December 7, 1941 would’ve been wide open.

Almost five years beyond 9/11 we still (supposedly) can’t even find bin Laden, yet we’ve succeeded in destablizing an entire region — murdering tens of thousands of innocent people in the process while mobilizing the recruitment efforts of the very fundamentalist fervor we’re attempting to “battle.”

We’ve done everything except make a complex global situation less complex, and now the first 9/11 movie is on the horizon for release. We all know what happened on that horrific day, but know absolutely nothing about the seeds that led up to that day. I guess in this world of reality tv and goverment positioning, that doesn’t mean anything.

Personally speaking, I don’t appreciate the attempt to capitalize on my raw nerves and emotions surrounding the event. Then again, it took me more than a year to simply sit through the news footage of the planes crashing into the WTC due to being forced to walk though the rubble of Ground Zero for over a year on my daily commute from Brooklyn to Jersey City…

I might not have the average American’s perspective on this one.

What do you think?

Kevin Powell is apparently running for a seat in the 10th Congressional District out of Brooklyn, NY.

“I have watched America go through many changes over the past few years, because of September 11th, because of the war in Iraq, because of Hurricane Katrina, because of the exploitation and manipulation of our values and our differences, and I want to use my voice, in Washington, DC, on a national stage, in a way that affirms our humanity, not denies it,” said Powell via a statement.

“America is not the country it once was, but we are still not the country we can be either,” he added. “It is time for new leadership, a new generation, to push us forward, and I want to be a part of that wave of fresh ideas, of new visions, for these times, for the 21st century.”

Vote or die, people! A brilliant Colbert Report interview is on the line here.

(via SOHH)

I don’t think I can top this gem, but I have to add some taint flavor of my own.

Back in 2002, when I was Nerve dating, I met a very attractive and seemingly cool woman. Our profiles showed we were both into hip-hop, specifically Talib Kweli, she was at a non-profit while getting her post-grad degree and lived just a few neighborhoods away in Brooklyn.

Perfect.

In our first email conversation I told her that I lived a subway stop away in Gowanus. Well, she had no idea where Gowanus was, so I described it as the “taint between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens; it doesn’t get much love.”

As you might imagine, I’m (happily) dating *a different* woman today.

I’m An American

At one time in my life, I would even say that I was blindly proud and patriotic.

I grew up watching The Lone Ranger and John Wayne movies on WOR re-runs on Saturday afternoons. My neighborhood was full of sprawling lawns and happy families. The American dream, right?

Well, eventually I grew up, realizing that things aren’t always what they seem to be.

Over the years, I’ve become exposed to a cross-section of people with varied backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. These breadcrumbs of my travels — mixed in with my own experiences — have made me realize the truth of what being a citizen of this most powerful nation entails:

The benefits of our common goodness, as well as the baggage of our wrongful intent, is what we must continue to evolve towards enlightenment, otherwise, such power can go unchecked.

Historically, American’s dedication to the creation of democratic institutions, producing innovative life-altering government and laws, as well as products, services, medicines, the internet; all have been inspirations to other nations on the face of this planet.

Unfortunately, the DNA of our mafia-style history of murder, slavery and unchecked capitalism has seeped into most of these democratic institutions, whether it be through industrial lobbyists, foreign policy or corporate conglomerates and deregulation.

9/11 changed a lot for me.

I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn on September 11, 2001. After the attack, my outwardly-facing patriotism far exceeded my formative peek. I shopped for hours, in sold-out stores, looking for a flag to place in my father’s car window. I mean, those were my neighbors, my countrymen that perished in a blink of an eye or worse, over hours leading up to a leap out of a 85th storey window.

But during the months leading up to the Iraq Occupation, my perspective of this nation — more specifically, this administration — went straight into the shitter. My belief in our government and our constitutional processes came to a screeching halt.

I pulled a 180.

The Flip

There’s a reason my blog has its current palette and why I refuse to buy any more blue or red clothes. It’s that sickly, deep with me. Our country hasn’t been a democracy since the end of WWII. Our leaders are heading into the 50th year of a post-WWII plan to create a New World Order.

• Why do you think the Third World can’t evolve out of its poverty ridden, corrupt, AIDS infested, pushover status?
• Why do you think we continue to run rough-shot in Latin America?
• Why do you think we invaded Vietnam?
• Why do you think we’re in Iraq?

A Conversation From “Network”

Arthur Jensen: [to Howard] They say I can sell anything; I’d like to try to sell something to you.

Arthur Jensen: It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. THAT is the natural order of things today. THAT is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And YOU WILL ATONE. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it. Is that clear? You think you’ve merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars.

Arthur Jensen: The world is a business, Mr. Beale; it has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine, oppression or brutality - one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock - all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangelic.

Howard Beale: Why me?

Arthur Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.

Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

Any of that sound familiar? Up until the past few weeks, I had my doubts that we’d *ever* regain the potential of our great Republic… And then Patrick Fitzgerald finally spoke… And then the Democrats grew a pair. Something happened to me…

I became somewhat optimistic again.

This is my current mental model regarding the state of our nation. We’re pragmatically moving in the right direction.

• The blogosphere is holding corruption accountable
• The mainstream media is beginning to do their jobs
• Discourse is rampant
• Indictments are being served
• Technologists are decentralizing media more and more with each passing day

We’re slowly moving towards democracy, slowly moving towards our common Republic… but we still need to take it up a notch.

• We need to remove ourselves from Iraq
• We need to start developing progressive solutions to our issues of poverty, education, health care and foreign policy
• We need to create alternate forms of fuel
• We need to feel comfortable in that uneasy role of rapid change and evolution
• We need to hold the hands of corporate America in order to break down the old business models of the 20th century, and help instill collaborative, open business models that leverage the best aspects of capitalism, the best aspects of innovation, the best aspects of humanity
• We need to become global citizens

We need to be we, indivisible to the utmost degree.

I’m really trying to walk this walk… hard. Are you?

Until we’re all there, I’ll continue rooting for the Jets and the Suns, eating Pumpkin Pie and Broccoli and washing it down with an OJ and Lime juice smoothie. Why you ask?

Because I’m an American.

The master of framing the moment within a gut-felt emotion is back, providing clarity beyond the crystal clear. Take a listen to Chuck’s response to the natural and federal disaster of Katrina, the Children of Eris remix, “Hell No We Ain’t All Right”

Chuck D’s rhymes flow so natural and powerful they take form within your psyche while you latch onto his beat. That’s because Chuck doesn’t twist to the beat of a loop; Chuck’s direct, unflinching words twist a beat of their own.

Can’t you feel him in this latest drop?

I follow his words, like “the new world is upside down and out of order” as a flip from the past, as back then he was taken aghast, as the polar opposites were set-up, the Axis of Evil corrupt…

Man…

I often wonder if the 17 to 23 year-old crowd nowadays gets the same dose of reality in the Hip hop nation.

Sure, the crew of Common, Talib Kweli, Mos Def and The Roots bring consciousness to each of their narratives on multiple levels. Underground hip-hop, like Head-Roc, sticks to the grimy reality, and J-Live lives and keeps it real as a teacher in Brooklyn, but where is the channeled anger of this generation?

Maybe he/she/they are out there and the gray in my chin is talking all of this junk — if so, feel free to let me know. To the extent that Chuck D and Public Enemy pumped out perspective and knowledge in the late 80’s to the mid-90’s (along with KRS-One and Brand Nubian), I just don’t hear the same form of consistent passion in these modern day cats.

Yes, Mos Def was crazy conscious with his tabulations in Mathematics, and has kept ‘em coming leading right up to the in-the-moment response and drop of Katrina Klap. Artists such as Kanye West have proven to have a conscious, yet even Kanye still goes back and forth with club songs chock full of faux diamond dissing, gold-digging lyrics.

Chuck D earned the lead Public Enemy #1 tag with his straight up, hardcore responses to social issues of the time; I’m talking about consistent responses to real-time events, like:

• dropping “By the Time I Get To Arizona” when Arizona refused to honor Martin Luther King’s birthday
• or when Chuck tried to shut down the malt-liquor industry in “1 Million Bottlebags” for targeting young black males with their poison
• even in their twilight, in 2002 Public Enemy dropped “Son of a Bush” at a time when political commentary in hip-hop was ripe for the picking, but rare due to the climate of blind patriotism. Only Eminem made any Bush accountability waves, but he waited until a safer year of 2004 to drop his Mosh video, pre and post 2004 elections.

Enough.

Like that dude on Enter the 36 Chambers said, “Ah yeah, again and again!”

Bring the noise, Chuck.

UPDATE: Here’s the original Public Enemy release of “Hell No We Ain’t Alright“

My day at work today centered around getting pissed off about the upcoming war; the commute home got even more interesting.

First, for the comedy relief of the day. I’m waiting for the N/R train on the Cortlandt Street platform, when I look across the track and notice this older gentleman, probably in his mid-sixties, dressed conservatively in a gray suit, casually drop his paper on the platform and stroll away. My first thought was, "Ok. He just littered. Maybe that’s how people acted before Woodsy the Owl. Give him the benefit of the doubt." So I did, and went back to scanning my own rag. That’s when I hear water splashing down on the track.

In the midst of the afternoon commute rush, the same guy is urinating onto the tracks. No one knows what to do. All of us were deer in the headlights, caught watching this unfold. The guy didn’t look drunk and was dressed in a nice suit. He eventually finished (old guy = bad prostate), but the kicker? He strolls back to his paper, picks it up and goes back to reading. Ha.

So I finally get on the train and manage to find a seat. At the next stop, the women next to me gets off and a guy squeezes between the doors and sits down in her place. Nothing out of the ordinary. So during my daily dose of conservative subway people watching (i.e. don’t look at anyone for more than two seconds and only in glances), I notice the new guy reading a miniature copy of something that looks like Arabic, bobbing his head up and down… pausing… and then mumbling to himself. He’d then reopen the finely bounded/crafted book for a half second, look up in the air, and then go back to mumbling.

Now, I’ve been traveling the NYC subway system for years, and to my best recollection, the only people I’ve ever noticed reading like that have been Orthodox Jews traveling with me from Brooklyn to downtown Manhattan. So here I find myself during the month of "Shock and Awe," sitting next to a guy with a mustache as thick as Saddam’s, dressed in a green army jacket, mumbling to himself while reading Arabic prose.

Welcome to New York City, the cultural Mecca of Western Civilization—the only place where one can feel enlightened daily by the vast diversity of people surrounding you, yet simultaneously fear for your life because of the actions of your government and media outlets.

I’m pretty sure (about 99 & 44/100%) that this guy was praying and looking inward during a rough time in his life or something, yet his actions, which at any other time wouldn’t catch my eye or stir my hand to write about, got me second guessing my safety. This type of irrational fear is what the majority of this country doesn’t understand when they blindly back a poorly sponsored and irrational war.

The “red states” of this nation don’t land anywhere near the top twenty terror spots to hit in America (I have the celebrity map, you know). So while Billy Bob and soccer mom 12,614 “support the government fully to protect us” in very vaguely defined ways, people over here in NYC start to look for exits whether we’re underground, on the streets, or inside our office buildings.

I hate the fact that these thoughts even crept into my skull. As hard as it has been to be a New Yorker over the last few years, being a Muslim New Yorker must take the cake for “king of all shitty positions.”

Well, I guess it’s better than being Muslim in Ohio.

The other day, Efrat and I checked out the D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival.

performance hairdresser

guys painting in a glass box

political theatrics

secrets in a window

tonka christmas tree

D.U.M.B.O. is too fresh. The vibe is straight up fine arts and creativity. Why the hell am I living in the taint between Park Slope and Carrol Gardens? Oh yeah, I remember why… I’m NOT A TRUST FUND KID!

Feel the bitterness.

My afternoon routine on the weekend often finds me kicking back at the College Hill Diner, reading the NY Post and munching on a Turkey Club. Well, yesterday I got my club sandwich, but ran into the fuzz while trying to land my 25¢ rag.

For over a year I’ve been prognosticating that at least one of the shops in my hood is a front for something mad illegal, and yesterday, my assumption was confirmed on one level or another. As I tried to open the door to my local bodega/deli, I was kept in the street by a squad of police in flack jackets. A few minutes rolled by and the group came out of the store with the owner in cuffs. No explanation was given by the employees except, "the cops took the owner away." No shit, Sherlock, but I want to know if he was running drugs or white slaves. Hell, I get better gossip on Page Six.

Anyhow, I dropped my quarter on the counter, grabbed my paper and headed out. Next week it’ll be more drama. Life in the big city.

some days are just harder than the next
i don’t know why
i don’t write the specs
to life in the big city
and the movement of the street
it’s tough enough to hang
and stock my fridge to eat
’cause dealing in the boroughs is a constant ride
celebrities losing status
life reborn from suicide
while millions of naked souls
pound the streets on a mission
searching for lost gold
or a love warmth found in epidermus friction
some days the city is straight up black and white
good versus evil
wrong versus right
but most of the time we’re all a shade of gray
doing our thing
finding our own way
so when the city begins to loom
(as all massive entities do)
you do what it takes to get off the mat
and suck it up to make it through
that’s what works for me
as i refused to be pinned with a one, two and a three

Click To Play (by Tao Ruspoli)

alright, i’m definitely not down on that vibe
red devil barbecue grills within the suburban tribe
manicured lawns, thirty piece china sets
garbage disposal units and non-allergic pets
two cars parked in a freshly paved drive
an overly friendly postman to keep the conversation live
neighborhood watchers to keep trespassers away
tree lined roads without a glimpse of decay
i don’t know
it all sounds too perfect to me
give me the cultured grit of urbania
that’s my living philosophy
stumbling outside on a thursday night
running into a mixed couple just might
kick off a discussion on world events
or maybe just lead the proceedings to the park with live band tents
a subway ride away live van goghs and monets
across town you can find the son seals and robert crays
straight downtown is juniors famous cheesecake
all access, all day
no matter what kind of cheese you make
ok, so i navigate around the homeless population
and sometimes the pace can cause exasperation
but when i lie down at night
and think about what will come tomorrow
i know i won’t be left bored in the dark
because the city constantly calls for me to borrow
a ride
block by block
tick tock goes the clock
neighborhoods change faces
new storefronts
new races
all in a blink of an eye
why ask why?
all you can do is gear up and hold on for the ride
there’s nothing like this man made rip tide
life in the city ain’t a pity
give me a metrocard and 24 hours
i’ll come back with found knowledge and flowers
for you

Linda and I hopped on the Q Saturday afternoon and rolled down to Coney Island to catch the yearly spectacle "Mermaid Parade." When we got there, we realized that we came a bit too late as the streets were packed with spectators and mermaids were hustling to get into position. We did the best we could and shoved our way to the front of the rows of people stacked six deep and waited for the show to begin.

Now here’s something I didn’t know about mermaids; apparently they like to drive vintage hot rods and burn massive amounts of rubber. One mer-dude peeled out right in front of five cops and got them all choking on melted rubber fumes. I laughed really hard, which had people looking at me funny, because ever since 9/11, it seems that no one can make fun of cops in NYC. I still thought it was a Kodak moment. Sue me.

The next thing I learned was that drunken mermaids like to show off their boobs. Actually, all of the mermaids seemed to enjoy it. It made me smile. Linda didn’t say anything, but I think she thought I was a perv. I just found the whole spectacle amusing.

We ended up walking around for hours, stopping once to eat and once for me to lose five bucks on a basketball shooting game (it was rigged, I swear). At the end of the day, after spending an hour watching people on the boardwalk we dragged our tired, burnt asses to the train and went home.

Brooklyn rules!

My neighbors threw a party last weekend and it got me to thinking about the make-up of our setup here in BK ever since.

I never watched the show for more than five minutes at a time, but our apartment area is like a ghetto version of Melrose Place; the primetime soap opera centered around a courtyard where the beautiful people met as they came home from their snooty jobs. We kind of have got the same thing going on… well, with the exception of the snooty people and a pool. Instead, we have the smell of garbage, crying babies in the middle of the night, random gunshots once a month and at least a car accident per week.

They call my neighborhood trendy. I guess. I think that’s what they called Alphabet City 15 years ago while all the inhabitants were getting mugged. I don’t know about all of that, but I’m down with these digs. The kids (they’re all under 25! Yikes, I’m getting old) are cool, and they throw pretty righteous gigs. It’s just fun to imagine Heather Locklear coming home from the ad agency and stepping around a bum to get into the place.

people walk by…
i can see into their souls
lost
tragic
corrupt
whole
each meanders by without an end
none strangers by classification
all on the mend
i watch her take his hand
guiding it to her heart
distractions set the mood to folly
a moment to save like rollie
fingers on her chest
tapping the ivory to the beat
radiating heat
one would say it’s obvious
the next would say discrete
who am i but the observer on the street

last night i told myself
that i would never turn back
the future was now
and the past was steeped in black
but my head’s on a swivel today
thinking about the mistakes of yesterday
yet around the corner comes may
blossoming the new display
of a man on the rebound of a board…
is that a double stat?
time to smarten up
and wear less than too many hats.

in the morning i awoke
leaned out the window and took a toke
the fresh air brooklyn can bring
no joke
rounding the corner of my initial run
heart beating fast
feeling the awaking sun
one mic blasting hard
and i’m just 1/4 done
breathing long
looking stong
staight ahead
back from the dead
or so i said…

alright, i’m looking straight inward to myself
to pull me out of this funk
and restack my mental shelves
but now i find myself stalling
like a flooded engine on start
some would say it’s in my head
but i’d insist it’s in my heart
the world is in fluctuation
terror riding it’s evil broom
and being alone in this city
feels like being gunless at high noon
and on top of all this madness
i’m searching for a professional turn
something to make me grounded
allowing myself to learn
so about face is where i’m headed
back into the fray and mix
trying to make a living
like a good natured mr. myxlplyx