ESSENCE of MY EXPERIENCE...Merci Beaucoup

EXHALE...SHOOP, SHOOP!!!

That is the ESSENCE of this last NYC Tryp.  It would appear that Harlem, Uptown, Midtown...the Grand Grey monoliths are truly about to become part of my Black History.  What does this mean? 
To whom should I credit this move...ON!?  Besides fate and impatience, I wouldn't count on much.  I have determined that SUFFERING FOOLS can no longer be part of this NYC existence...despite how ABOUT IT they may deem themselves. 

RESPECT  is earned...not given, silly FOOL!  I have earned every bit I have acrewed...so FALL BACK!  

But see, that is the issue I am having...I am not ever in a position to judge anyone else's process.  My life is not about that.  An environment that fosters anything like that...I need not be part of.  Fashion and the business it is built on, is about highlighting the possibility of improvement, while harping on every negative a person might just possess! 

I am not of this world.  I am having an ANDY moment [complete with leather jacket].  There is nothing clear about the future, but the sun is shining.  My smile is finding it's way back to the fore and for that..the burden of having to fit...that I am finding so exhaustive...GONE...I am growing to truly appreciate.

I was beginning to hate this and that is NOT an emotion I was looking for.  Being true to me...it had become a chore to be TRUE to me.  I left NYC for just this reason...initially.  I returned for a Re-Charge...and I am moving on knowing that holding my breath is not an option.  

B-R-E-A-T-H-E, SING, LIVE...LOVE...LEARN...GROW...KNOW...and SHOW!

Or would you stay in the present and find a way to fight the good fight?  Do what it takes...LIVE RIGHT!!!  - REALITY [Vikter Duplaix]

LISTEN OUT!!!

Let's see what happens.

Abientot

BeNU

PURPOSE...COMMENCEMENT

So...I hear...word has IT...that I have been REALLY secretive about MY MUSIC.

http://www.chpak.com/#!music

[check it now...while you read]

Perhaps that is because it ISN't Totally MY MUSIC, but the blood, sweat, tears of a couple of folks.  My FONFON for Life - Julien Bonnet.  Martin...certainly contributed what he...would...when he...COULD...lol.  For all of their contributions to that experience I am forever grateful.

I met Julien through my boy Pierre while on a break from touring Europe (Paris, Caen, Luxemborg, Spain - Alhambra to be exact) with an avante garde, revolutionary staging of PORGY n BESS!

He'd been a driver for my friend Kori's boss...while SHE was in Paris...WORKING...[wink,wink]...on some FOOD FILM!!! 

Anyway...I let Pierre know I couldn't just be in a Paris and not be doing something musical.  And he could tell I had soul from listening to me humm along to the ROOTs reggae he'd SPLIFF me out to when we chilled at his flat in Marcadet.

Pierre has turned out to be a lasting friend...and one of those that kept me good in my most trying times. Merci Mon Frere!!!

Julien and Pierre were old school..."friends"...who occasionally smoked together.  Pierre from Upper Class and Julien of working class, there unifying traits were WISDOM and music.  Julien can kill a bass...WICKED!  

So, Pierre takes me to a building...in Pigalle.  We meet Julien, the guy who owns the studio.  This skinny guy who used to play guitar around Paris, but now owned the best guitar and amp spot in the city...as well as the studio space...He used to live there - Dark haired and rail thin...he had a pleasant enough disposition and a BRILLIANT smile...matched only the glint in his eye that belied the weathered appearance.  His only employ is another guitarist from Texas, who schooled me early on just how to go about staying...should I want to stay...lol!!!  So far...YUP!

Anywho...we got keys...stepped out side to the green double-doors.  Julien plugged in a code...we stepped into this courtyard...the light clicks on...we cross the courtyard to glass door...open, adroit...another door...then down...around into another door...open and there...it was - HEAVEN...or STUDIO!
A worn, plump couch and low leather chair; a low table with entrails from a candle and an ashtray, sitting strategically framing the bottom of a MASSIVE ATTACK poster in the wall - the only real decoration... and then an AMP [old bandmate's].


Claude was there as well.  Franco-Spanish drummer - Middle Class...in every aspect.  The one of them I most identified with...easy...cool...and curious.  His parent's opened their home - a wonderfully appointed spaceous apt in the 10th...later] to me the day before I returned to tour because the boyfriend of the guy I was renting from decided to sell it [huh?!] while I was there...mad I wouldn't sleep...or SOMETHING with THEM!!!  I guess.

Grey berber carpet and long fold-out table...littered with a Mac a PC and other boxes wires and incense.  There were mic stands...cables on the wall and a red velvet...tissue hanging the full length and the corners of the far end of the space - the left side covering the living space of the owner.  There are two floor-to-ceiling pains...looking like windows, but actually are the glaring WHITE lights of the rooms...that stayed off!  Former storage facility, perhaps?

A drum set sat at the far corner, in front of the right-side of the velvet.  Claude liked his back to the velvet.  He would put on the headphones and just GO!!!!  Julien...used to squirm.  Always saying he was off...I never contested, but loved his abandon.  In reality...Claude displayed the...fervor Julien lacks.  That ABANDON would lead to his departure and eventual success with another band.

Julien rolled a spliff...turned on some ROOTS...and we just sat and listened to music...talked about music...argued about MUSIC...played and eventually SANG music...ALL NIGHT!  It felt...NATURAL...GREAT...REAL...WOW!

And that's Just the beginning...

A start...

The problem for me...and my want to tell my story is I am not always sure where to start.  My whole reason for even thinking I had a story began after Corey passed.  Sure, I'd kept diar...jour...gravel-books for about 5 years prior to thinking there was anything more than adolescent rantings.  I recorded all of the things I was encountering just as I was leaving Morehouse and returning North to really begin discovering NYC...for me.

I formed greater bonds with old high school friends - Nicol and even Stephanie; while finding new kinMANship in Anton-Lance-Anthony.  Brad and Chad - the other 2 sides of what I'd left in Hot-lanta as a TRIANGLE - graduated the year after I left, moving together to DC.  We continued to live vicariously through one another's experience and new friends. We visited.  We DID it.

I held a myriad of jobs - the first at BLOOMINGDALE's in the fabled Short Hills Mall.  I departed there in a "typical" FAG-manor!!!  LoL

 [My only time, I might add...as the fear of anything greater had me shook...for a while.]

Next, Paid Prescriptions.  I stayed there...way too long, but it was steady income; with insurance.  I was hanging out with a new set of friends - all of whom were young, black, cute, gay, liked the city...could drive...and worked.  We did it.
While traversing the city - specifically on Saturday HAIRCUT excursions down to Charlie Rock's chair at ASTOR PLACE - I really began to explore the city and see it on my own terms.  I indulged my every art-fashion-music-gay....adolescent whim.  I learned the varied villages and their then...still intact character.  I watched the people and discovered HUDSON NEWS.  I would spend hours...literally gazing at the wall of IMAGES looking back at me...in every language.  This was before the On-Slaught of the internet.  If you wanted to indulge your fashion whims, you had to go out and look-see!  I did.

 [I discovered high-priced fashion mags after buying my first Italian VOGUE as soon as I got my first check from Bloomingdale's.  $20...I believe.  I choked and then saw Linda DONE on the supplement, spoon dangling from her nose...Magalie as Sophia Loren...perfect.  Stephen Meisel at his HEIGHT!  I poured over those pages for mon...shit I STILL have the publication.  The ads were stellar, as the SuperModels were at their APEX and VERSACE had a SICK ad campaign with Naomi, Christie and my FAV YASMEEN GHAURI!!!  Linda in the Gianfranco Ferre ads...Amazing!]

Suffice to say HUDSON NEWS...was just like an explosion of this...and more.  So, as the coconut smell from my freshly cut SPANISH BOB...avec Natural pre-MaxwellCurl and the yearning for FUDRUCKER's began to rumble...I would stand and absorb all of the beautiful images I saw before me...and buy.  I began to budget into my Saturday Haircut alotment Fun Funds for Mags.  Most Importantly, the now plethora of start-ups by young blacks - from NEW WORD (which I freelanced for); NOIR, REBELLE; a Caribbean import PANACHE; a start-up HIGH arts magazine I also freelanced for;

as well as a British imports TRUE
(the Father of TRACE), ID and UNTOLD young black artists were showing and knowing.  I was witnessing the on-coming BROWN Arts Movement - BROWNIES, as I liked to call them.  Folks who wore brown clothes; wore brown make-up; spoke, wrote; rapped; painted; sung about BROWN things.  Media...smart, young mags were their...our media.  And they were great. Not to mention PAPER, the old W newspaper;  I still have some at my Parent's spot.

Fashion, Music, Film, Painting, Poetry...SMART art.

A start.

Hmmm...

CURRENT THUMP!!!

Let it RIDE...

Maybe I AM HEAVY...TOO HEAVY

It is amazing what a difference a day makes.  

I have often been told to follow my intuition.  

Never stay around ANYONE or ANYTHING threatens to SHUN my light...regardless of manifestation.  There is something there.  Regardless the mask there is an intent...and intimation....regarding just what their opinion of your place just might be.  I am certain that there would be a loving negotiation...of the off-the-cuff sentiments...that now litter the bleach-cherry of these hardwood floors.

It is a long hard road. 

 I guess living has forced folks NOT TO Trust me!  I have never stolen...dvd's...and porn maybe, but nothing substantial.  I have never abused anyone.  I have never knowingly put those I love in danger...opting instead to "do my dirt" in the shadows...regardless of the the retribution.

I want people to trust me.  Trust my knowledge my assertions my accomplishments...trust that when I say something...it is as I say...and be ok with that.  FOREVER, I have always felt THAT was not the case...regardless of the audience.  Whether it be West Orange...the Red Clay of GA or the Concrete By-Ways of Gotham the sentiment...the feeling is always the same - YOU SURE?!  I sensed that early on and because of that choose to GO SLOW AND MAKE MY LIFE HAPPEN.  That way, that which I gain along the way...I KNOW, because I have taken MY TIME to cultivate and excavate the knowledge.

That said, in a city like NYC.  With folks going at varying degrees of everything...it is best to be aware that at some point someone you thought got you...won't!  It will mani...or woman-i-fest in a myriad of ways.

Curious...how the ME,ME,ME is as ugly as it gets.

MOVE ON.  

NEVER STAY where One tries to snub-out your light.  

It is not right.  

They should trust that you know just how to control it.

It is odd how people tell you to ignore the assumptions, judgments and assessments of others...when, after a certain age - unless you have a mate - your entire social world is made of that.  Especially if you are the ONLY one of a kind in your Group.

 You need to change friends!

Curious...I have no fear of FIRE...HEAT.
I do not see it
destructively
...nor do I believe I would not be able to contain it.  It is something that stirs in my soul...therefore I know I can keep it controlled.  That is never the issue.

It is a Long Hard Road...

With Many a WINDING TURN...

THAT leads Us to Who knows where

...who knows when. 

And So See-yeth...that I NOW SAYETH!!!

I happened to find these two...from '08.  There is certainly a story here...and I promise to expound on them. However, just know that I am Fresh from Amsterdam...watching a Malcolm X Documentary on ARTE...chewing...;-))...AMSTERDAM's finest BUBBLEGUM!!!

Radio Nova is NO DOUBT on...and there looks to be a Sandwich a Poulet a la table

...cuisine a Francais!!

 Here...we have all the tools necessary to...CHEW this precious, sweet, tangy...effervescent BUBBLE GUM!!!

Suffice to say...I chewed and cHeWeD and CHewED and chEwEd...and CHEwed et al...; -)

Above and beyond the story these pictures tell, I realize that I shall truly be able to share my Parisian experiences...here...with you, should you care to read, look...listen, learn and LOVE these experiences as I have certainly grown to.

I ask your patience, as I want to insure not only the integrity of the work, but also to allow this process it's rightful organic space to...arrive. 

The Moment is Upon Me.

The Time is NOW...

My Platform Determined.

Stay Tuned

ENJOY

PEACE