Slum Clearance, The Natural Way
Here’s the thing about Katrina that few are talking about. When the New Orleans basin is finally drained, and most of the ramshackle structures that make up the housing stock in the poorest areas are marked for demolition, does anyone in their right mind think that the majority of New Orleans citizens will have an […]
Hooray for Kanye
So he’s a bit of a whiner. A tad full of himself, maybe? Crying, as they say, with two loaves of bread under his arm? Who cares. As of today, this kid is officially my hero. Last week, he steps out on that shakiest of limbs in hip-hop to stand against homophobes.Then, two days ago, […]
THE UNBEARABLE WHITENESS OF BEING
I remember the day I decided to kill whitey. It was a late spring afternoon in 1981, and everybody in my 8th grade class was restless with the coming of summer. So the teachers opened up the shared area between the classrooms, turned down the lights, and let the kids spin records and dance. Columbia, […]
Respect The Architect
Not one to make mountains out of Mooghills, but I take exception to the New York Times’ obit of the venerable inventor: “At the height of his synthesizer’s popularity… progressive rock bands like Yes, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer built their sounds around … the timbres of Mr. Moog’s instruments.” Can’t let […]
Yesterday
From a lot less… Yesterday was one of the weirdest I have had since returning to New York, begun on the streets of the South Bronx and ending in the Hamptons. In the morning, at a parade talking to U.S. Rep Jose Serrano about folks scraping and scrapping to find $8-an-hour security jobs. In the […]