Sexism and the City

Like every thinking person I know, I'm appalled by the French government's big push to ban the wearing of burkas. Imagine how I balked when I read this story about "tournante" - gang rape as punishment for girls in the suburbs who rebel. Of course, I had to repost it:

“In Muslim immigrant families, the sons are treated like kings. They are not just preferred over the girls, they are spoilt and coddled.” The crux is that when these young men encounter resistance beyond the family for the first time - when they don’t get into university or college, for example - they react helplessly and destructively. They compensate for their fury and inferiority complexes with machismo and violence against those who are socially and physically weaker – girls in particular.SEXISM & THE CITY, Jun 2009

You really should read the whole article.

...podcast?

i'm thinking about doing a (bi)weekly podcast, starting this summer. i'm still stitching it together in my head. the thing is, i'm having way too many interesting conversations with friends and strangers. why shouldn't i share these spontaneous chats with the world?

and i suppose i could play some songs, too.

of course if you ask the internet, it will give you all kinds of answers about how to make a podcast. as it turns out, the new iPhone would make podcasting especially easy. i'm not so sure about audioboo (great name!) but it's so easy to use according to some reviews, it's kind of irresistible -- in spite of that social network thing.

i don't want to go on and on for an hour or even a half hour or even 20 minutes. i want snippets of all the strange sonic explosions that keep going off around me every day.

let's see what develops.

grillin' in the ghetto

if you live in this town and you have a backyard, a terrace or even rooftop access -- or some other wonderful way to grill at home -- this post is definitely not for you. i'm talking to the rest of us -- those who take to the city parks, the sidewalks -- and yes, the occasional fire escape! -- to roast that meat. in the face of imminent gentrification, unemployment and/or freelancing woes, and The Rising Cost of Everything in New York City, i am determined to live in the ghetto that is west harlem and have my fun.

is it delicious? yes! is it illegal? yes! does everyone do it? of course! memorial day weekend will find absolutely everyone in riverbank state park, grilling tasty things to perfection. this year, i hope to be amongst their ranks.

the requirements are few but very very important. first of all, the grill must be light, as in not heavy. secondly, they must be easy to carry. and last but not least, they must be inexpensive. less than $100? okaaay. less than $50? nice. less than that, if i can catch something on sale.

here's a rundown of my top five "charbroil it!" situations so far.

1. portable bbq grill -- i'm not a fan of pottery barn, but i'm thinking seriously about getting this one. it's hideable, lighter than light, quite portable. and at 29.99, it's kind of affordable. and cute!
   
2. notebook portable grill -- this thing is impressive. it weighs a whopping 8 pounds, it's got 192 square inches of cooking space (18 in x 18 in), it's got a carrying handle and it's less than fifty bucks.
3. cast iron hibachi bbq grill -- when i had my initial jaunts to harlem to hang out with my big brothers back in the day, this is what they were working with on the fire escape: standard issue cast iron, sure -- but it was so durable that when it fell accidentally (we were on the 3rd floor), one of them just went downstairs, picked it up and cranked it all over again. (ah, harlem in the 80s/90s...those were the good ol' days!) those adjustable racks made it kind of irresistable. and so did the price. only thirty clams!
   
4. son of hibachi portable bbq grill -- if i could legitimately grill -- on the beach, say, or even at some tailgaiting function or whatever -- this would be the one for me. when you're done, this thing folds into a self-cleaning oven and it self-extinguishes and slides into a flame-retardant snuff out pouch. here's the kicker: it saves your charcoal. priced out at seventy-something. (not bad...)
5. cobb portable grill -- this is the one i'm probably going to get. it's only 8.5 pounds, it can roast, bake, smoke or fry and even make a pizza (!!!), so i can basically do whatever i want. (and i love doing whatever i want.) it doesn't require much coal, it's easy to take apart and clean, it's cool to the touch so i can pick it up and go if the cops come along and tell me i have to leave. and yeah, it's a c-note.
   

that's right, people -- that would be me in a madras plaid bikini on a cowboy blanket in a park somewhere uptown near the river reading zora neale hurston and roasting oysters with some cops looking the other way. that would most definitely be me...

(don't worry, i'll take lots of pictures.)

singing!

Since it's recently dawned on me that everyone isn't on Facebook or Myspace, here's a clip of me singing a relatively unknown standard called I'll Never Be The Same from last week's performance with Matt Ray (piano) and Andrew Hall (bass) for A.C.T.I.O.N.'s Harlem Salon in Hamilton Heights, co-sponsored by Jazzmobile. (A.C.T.I.O.N. is an acronym for A Coalition To Improve Our Neighborhood.) What a beautiful night we had. (Thanks for videotaping everything, Paula!)

This is one of the songs that will be on the CD that I'm co-producing with JC Hopkins. Our hostess Helen was sweet enough to invite us back to her breathtakingly gorgeous brownstone for a return engagement when the CD is ready to be released so that we can have a lovely uptown launch.

House parties are definitely where it's at, folks. Especially when they're this elegant.

My Unconditional

Blood called me tonight. I missed the call. I was goofing off with my Uncle Tyrone and my Aunt Beverly at their big sprawling house in Charleston Heights, munching on pizza from Pizza Hut (sacrilege! but hey, it’s the sticks so whatever) watching some freakout violent maudlin Lifetime Television for Women movie of the week with the volume all the way down and having this long-winded and very very lively discussion about cremation in the Bible and burial rituals in Christianity, which shifted to black power, the one drop rule and jim crowisms in modern everyday society -- for which my friend would not give his two cents. (heh.)

When I checked my messages later on, it was really late and it was really early -- that time of night where moments collide and disintegrate into everything all at once. All of a sudden, it’s morning and it’s night time. All of a sudden, I’m relaxed and everything in me is starting to hum all over again. All of a sudden, I’m asleep and I’m way too wide awake. Like I was ever anything else.

His voice is a sonic blur. It’s a fidgety winding endlessly laconic sonorous lapse in a burlap sack, filled with gravel and soot and candy, covered with good intentions and gasoline. When I hear him say the name that he calls me – something that he made up a very long time ago – it tweaks something deep in my soul and I feel glowy, somehow. He’s rambling and he’s going on and on about me and how I never call him, how I haven’t called him in months and on and on he goes. And I am struck at how much he sounds like my father, before I promised him that I’d call once a week. Sometimes he still goes off about how I never come home, how he came home all the time, how he never wanted to leave home, never wanted to leave his mother. And on and on he rambles. Incoherent and clear as a bell. Desperate, bright and shimmering with pure feeling. My father, talking to me inside of Blood’s voice, like an echo. I know this voice very well.

I sigh and keep listening. But really all I can hear is so much love. It’s so immediate, this rush of love, that I almost blink back tears.

He’s afraid that he’s going to lose me but he won’t, unless he wants to. And he doesn’t. He can’t. It’s completely implausible. That offer was never on the table. It feels like we were always tight with each other, even before we met – because the time that we’ve had already can’t encompass our tightness. At one point, he said, “I’m your unconditional…” and he sounded like he wanted to say something else. But then I think he realized that the idea of being unconditional in and of itself was enough and he let it hang in the air and drift between us on that telephone line, like smoke and ash. It was as beautiful as a flower. I loved him so much in that moment, I didn’t have the words to say it. So I fell into the sound of his voice until he was done. All I could do was listen and smile to myself, like I had a big secret. And then I called him, right then.

It was so late and it was so early and we picked right up where we left off. I told him that he would see me on Monday night. I wanted to play him the new songs that I made. But one thing for sure held sway over both of us, right then. I made sure that I told him that I loved him very much before I hung up that phone. And he made sure that he said the very same thing to me.

surprise!

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Self-Improving Extroverted Self-Knower

snapshotty

as danny and i were leaving the sag/wgae theater on west 57th street the other day, we passed by a gossip girl shoot on west 57th street right in front of the russian tea room. lots of cameras and lights and stuff. and then there were a TON of paparazzi on the edge of it all, leaning in and angling here and there, taking pictures. i thought, oh wow -- this is the reason why i always keep my camera in my purse! and i thought about pulling it out. but then i got a glimpse of these two -- zac efron and the other white girl that everyone is always going on about that's usually paired with him -- and i was genuinely surprised at how pretty he was.

i mean really, really pretty. like, michael york pretty, when he was in the three musketeers. no. more like, rob lowe pretty, when he was in his early twenties. okay -- nobody's that pretty. that was otherworldly. he looked like a chick pretending to be a dude. then again there was christopher walken, when he was in the deer hunter. and maybe al pacino when he was in the panic in needle park -- a movie that shall now and forever remain in my all time favorite top five. he had quite a few beautiful moments in that film.

yeah, zac was really pretty and really uninteresting. no presence, no heat. and the girl with him -- what is her name? eh, i can't remember. --gave off NO sparks at all. i don't know what i was expecting but i'm fairly certain that it was way more than zip.

danny and i had just seen a preview of the latest julia roberts vehicle duplicity, co-starring clive owen. and no, it wasn't that good. it was i'm-stuck-on-this-plane-and-i-can't-sleep-so-i-guess-i'll-watch-this good. but before the movie started, we had a really interesting talk about her and film stars who insist on doing broadway and why they probably shouldn't. his acting teacher (who passed away recently) coached ms. roberts through her broadway debut and had really interesting remarks about her acting talent.

he said that the camera really loved her and that usually in film, that's 90% of the battle. a good director can get you through the rest. it's their medium, anyway. he also said that she was in way over her head with the broadway play and didn't understand why she was insisting on doing it. she's used to a 20 million dollar paycheck, so it definitely wasn't the money.

once upon a time, the hollywood movie studios brought you to the west coast to star in the broadway show you just did in new york city. and then they kept you under contract in their little circle, put you up in a cute little bungalow and groomed you -- with acting lessons, stylists, photographers, make-up artists, you name it. eventually, they farmed you out to other studios, built up your resume, your reputation. and then poof, you were a star.

there are moments where you see that kind of thing happening nowadays -- john leguizamo comes to mind and so does sara ramirez -- but it's not the flow of things. nowadays, you can finesse your way through it if you're pretty enough. even if you're a guy. especially if you're a guy.

maybe i should have taken a picture, anyway.