Barcelona and most of Spain, art and architecture, real food made with homegrown herbs, foreign film, graf, most forms of creative expression ..
Music
Pharcyde, BeatNuts, Tribe Called Quest, Me'Shell Ndegeocello, Spearhead, Digital, Pac, Too Short, El Chojin, Mystik (France), Mystic (Oakland), Common, Roots, all kinds of soul, any kind of funk, daphreephunkateerz, FreakPower, Massive Attack, Bonga, Mozart, the great ladies of jazz, Jon B, Joe, Gil Scott Heron, James Taylor, Elton John, Average White Band, Pocket Dwellers, Modill, --I think it's funny that young people often close their minds to various kinds of music-- and then some antique like me has a mind that's more open-- this list could go on for a very long time...
Check it out: I hijacked a bus last spring and guess who was on it? Murs-- so I told him to avoid all forms of risky business.
And now he has been back through Denver on his Presidential campaign tour, and we made this video in an attempt to secure publicity by getting me assassinated by a feminazi. To view the segment, click on SHOWS in the upper right corner, and choose #13, which is called DON'T HATE.
And 9/16/06 was another memorable night with Saul Williams, CX Kidtronic, Imani, and Opio of Hieroglyphics. I got to ask Opio what exactly it means to "learn the game" Oakland-style as Tupac used to say, and the mere experience of watching His Elegance drop word-thoughts was one of those things I would give (if I could) to everyone I love just to make their day a little more interesting. CX Kidtronic is ever the funniest guy in the house, and Saul reigns benevolent over the whole dominion of NGA. I didn't get a picture of Imani but he was as kind and intense as one would expect-- We all enjoyed various bites of the garlic grown by Wilson Pickett's tour manager, Pat Fern, who sends it to me every year from West-by-god Virginia, and I'm sure that's what makes the food so irresistible...
Movies
Besides Jamon, Jamon and Being John Malkovich? How about My Architect, Boys of Baraka, Water, Fire, Thug Angel, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Bulworth, Brewster McCloud, Clerks, Chasing Amy, Maurice or Portrait of a Marriage (if you have to have a gay movie-- anything but that stupid Brokeback), Live Flesh, Friday, La Belle Noisseuse, Artemisia, Triplets of Belleville, Sideways, Greenaway's Pillow Book.....
Television
Books
Stories are the most important aspect of being human, so all the myths, Bible stories, and archetypal hero tales speak volumes. American Book of the Dead, Castaneda, Exupery, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Cervantes, lots of DWG's. Saul Williams, both McCourts.....
Heroes
Water quality controllers..
This is a gift, not a discovery: Pink Floyd meets the Wizard of Oz, and I don't usually have the patience for Pink Floyd..... ..
About me: Been there, done that, had every fantasy offered at the exact wrong time. Calculated Tupac's horoscope when he was 16 without consciously knowing he existed.
Suffered through an ideal childhood: private music, dance, art, and foreign language lessons in between regular beatings while learning to love funk in a school that was equal parts white, Mexican, and black. Moved a lot-- learned to get into the "in" crowd.
Enjoy the underground hip hop world-- know a few artists and cook for them when they come to town. Respect the art forms associated w/hip hop, from C-walking and graf to beatboxing and producing, not to mention flowing. Particularly salute hip hop for keeping great musical motifs in circulation and inspiring a new generation to write poetry...
Number 2 on the Enneagram (giver) with Epicurean wing...
Sun: Capricorn, 8th house (house of mysteries); Moon: Scorpio w/multiple squares (not so easy to hug and mother=cross to bear); Gemini rising (conjunct Tupac's Saturn); Mars in 5th house; Uranus in 2nd house (rags and riches); Venus conjunct Tupac's Mars. A whole bunch of rationales for being one of millions who feel an otherwise inexplicable connection to people born in the summer of '71.
Had a lovely night with Mofro 9/15/06 at Cervantes and cooked enough to feed several of the staff as well. The food was good and the music was slammin. I was inspired to write a new song called "I Got News for You" and you see in these pics JJ Grey in his element talking music, Ian McHendrickson-Smith, who plays sax for Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings as well as Mofro, and Adam Scone, another Dap King and Sugarman collaborator who they claim can play keys and bass at the same time and tries to avoid cameras (maybe because he looks more like Cat Stevens than Yusuf Islam does). Thanks, Mofro, for the love and the funk.
Who I'd like to meet: Joseph from the Book of Genesis, because he must have been insanely attractive. And myself fifteen years ago and warn me away from the people who would sell me down the river years later...
And this cat, Rinpa Eshidan, who apparently makes great videos of his artwork:
....
Honestly, I wonder what can be done to save Darfur, since ousting dictators seems to require massive force and then occupation.....
On a MUCH lighter note, Check this song that PSYCHO LES of the BEATNUTS put on his latest album PSYCHO THERAPY-- it refers to yours truly!!!
Hey. Thanks a lot for the message. Things are on the right path over here. How's my beloved Colorado doing? Greetings from the other side of the land. Tomek
I was sitting in a restaurant in New Mexico last week and a Michael Franti song played over the sound system. Made me think about you. :) Then I get back to Colorado and find out that Tech N9ne is doing two dates in April here and who's opening for him? BLACK P AND MURS!!! And again in May. Could be your chance to meet another 1971er. LOL
hi beautiful mama!! i just wanted to wish you a wonderful new year...Miss seeing you, hopefully we can link up at a show this year sometime...please let me know if you ever need anything...& thank you for everything!! you are the best, and truly an inspiration.
