Imagine being able to go all the way back to 1987 and copp that Polo rugby that you always wanted but you were only seven years old so it wouldn’t have looked right on you. Or that Sergio Tachini sweatsuit, or that MCM leather cap. If retro B-boy flavor is your passion then I have the party for you…
CIRCA
@ GABRIEL URIST’s Worlds Fair
204 Elizabeth Street (between Prince and Spring Streets) June 2, 2007 – One Day Only – 12pm to 8pm
Don’t sleep playboys. Copp some one of a kind vintage I.T.’s from the 1970’s-1990’s.
JASON GIAMBI didn’t tell the whole truth to that Federal grand jury. He omitted the fact the team owners helped facilitate the steroids era by sponsoring the drug dealers trainers that had carte blanche access to the team’s clubhouses, weight rooms and practice areas. People seem to have forgotten how desperate major league team owners were after the season ending strike in 1995. The possibility of making each game a home run derby with souvenir baseballs flying out of the park was just too sexy to resist.
The good times evaporated and the shit bubbled over when BARRY BONDS obliterated the single season home run record. BONDS was arguably the best hitter in baseball already and the 350 ft. lines drives that he normally sprinkled around the outfield became 400ft line drives over the right field fences. BONDS was always this good, but he had the nerve to know it, and the gall to show it. I’m not surprised that Major League team owners threw BARRY BONDS under the bus. They knew that BARRY wasn’t going to put on the white gloves and tapdance around after his retirement like the G.O.A.T. WILLIE MAYS does. BARRY doesn’t have a gambling problem like WILLIE does either.
The real issue that JASON GIAMBI has brought to light is how much of America’s pastime is tied up in penthouse office suites by stuffed suits that care nothing for the integrity or perfection of the game. The owner’s greed begat the player’s greed. So as these rich bastards stumble and stammer over each other’s lies I sit nearly six stories up in the sky watching adults play a gotdamn kid’s game and trying not to get a nosebleed.
If Hip-Hop culture has turned thirty years old then someone needs to seriously sit down with Hip-Hop and discuss it’s plans for the future. After three decades of making some people ridiculously wealthy we find that Hip-Hop is about to evicted from it’s home. Hip-Hop was too busy partying and having fun to think about securing a stake in the ownership of it’s history.
It’s not just in the Bronx where Hip-Hop’s landmarks are being assailed by greedy land developers, but here in the boro of Brooklyn where thanks to frontman SHAWN CARTER, Forest City Ratner Corp. is determined to change the Brooklyn skyline forever. Everybody already knows about the Atlantic Yards project that will host a sports arena and hundreds of residential units.
There’s also a project in downtown Brooklyn called MetroTech that is also spearheaded by the same former slumlord turned developer BRUCE RATNER. In this project RATNER has decided to transform Brooklyn into a technology hub. Corporations like Chase and Verizon have already leased tens of thousands of square feet of office space. One of the buildings in the second phase of MetroTech’s footprint is a legendary Brooklyn landmark. The Albee Square Mall.
Immortalized by the classic Juice Crew anthem of the same name, the Albee Square Mall is where many Brooklynites bought their first sneakers. It’s where I bought my 18k gold toothcap. That shit was so gangsta. Shouts to the Jews from Lebanon. If you are ever in the ‘hood and you need to copp some shit you should fucks with them. All the other Jews and the Sikh Indians are for the fucking birds. They show you contempt even when you are spending your hard earned money with them.
Anyhoo, Albee Square Mall was a hotspot in the eighties. You had to roll through there deep or on the low solo creep. After school the mall was on smash with kids from Westinghouse high school. Cats from Farragut and Walt Whitman Houses(Fort Greene) would patrol the mall as well. No place was more alive with danger and excitement every day. Those days are long past but Albee Square and Fulton Mall still remain. It’s one of the areas that Disney never corrupted with it’s clandestine supremacy motifs. There’s no Target or IKEA yet but if RATNER has his way the Fulton Mall will become upscale and unaffordable, just like Manhattan.
The Hip-Hop generation needs to grow up and reclaim the places where the culture was born inside of them. Don’t waste the intellectual equity that has been rendered by so many artists and creative peoples. Holler at your local politicians and tell them that affordable housing is a must now. Not now, right now.
Former NYC Mayor EDWARD KOCH could have told you that the bodegas are the only places poor people and the disenfranchised shop. The bodegas are even frequented by the middle class as well. Former Mayor DAVID DINKINS still goes to the bodega when he wants to pick up some party favors. It’s real like that.
Speaking of bodegas…
Brooklyn Bodega Dot Com is at again. I’m talking about their annual Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. NYC doesn’t have enough free Hip-Hop events planned for the summer but the Brooklyn Hip-Hop festival nearly puts the entire season on it’s back. There are weekly events that lead up to the climax which is an outdoor concert with Ghostface Killah. Large Professor has just been added to a couple of festival dates. So don’t fake the funk and get your mind right early this summer Put the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival on your calendar. Not now, right now.
DOWNLOAD UPDATE ** DOWNLOAD UPDATE ** DOWNLOAD UPDATE
You cats struck gold today. Here is a link to D.L. The Dark Crystal movie. Big shout to DP Dot Commenter Kaos for doing us this justice.
It was your typical Friday night under the big lights of NYC. I left the office after 8pm to drive into the city for my homey CED G’s birthday party. CEDRIC is one of the cats from Brooklyn Tech that never shitted on me after I was expelled. As a matter of fact, he made all the other cats on the football squad continue to show me love. Nullus, of course. Why did CED pick out the swankiest lounge in the city to hold his soiree? This spot called 230 Fifth Avenue is the new gem in midtown. During the summertime they kill with their rooftop bar and panaramic views of Manhattan. My only problem is that they sell Belvy’s and tonic for $14. CED has a masters degree in economics, I have a G.E.D. Nexttime I fucks with CED I’m bringing my flask.
C.S. saved me from blowing my light bill up in that piece by texting me and asking me out to the movies. I was down like JAMES BROWN to see this film called the Hip-Hop Project. It was exec-produced by DANA ‘Queen Latifah’ OWENS and BRUCE ‘2 Hard 2 Die’ WILLIS. I think it’s about Hip-Hop as an empowering force for education and societal change. They took that shit out of theatres after one week. Our other options were ‘Hot Fuzz’ and ’28 Weeks Later’. I didn’t think we would fuck with ‘Grindhouse’ because the shit started at midnight and I knew it was a beast at three plus hours long. So C.S. and I said eff it to a movie and we went into Koreatown for some barbecue and dim sum. After a long and relaxing meal on East 32nd Street we saw that we were in time for catching the midnight show. Maybe it was the fried green tea ice cream, but I felt like I had the energy to rock out.
Let me just say this… ‘Grindhouse’ is the most entertaining movie that I have seen this year. Including ‘Spider-Man 3’ and ‘300’ by FRANK MILLER. It’s the reason I used to go to the Duece when I was 12 and 13 years old to peep a kung fu flick. It’s pure cinematic absurdist adventurist escapism. QUENTIN TARANTINO and ROBERT RODRIQUEZ win for the sheer fact that they were paid handsomely to produce what looked like the most fun evar. Actually, RODRIQUEZ had so much fun with the lead actress in his film that his marriage of sixteen years is finito. Even Mexicans can go Hollywood.
The two features ‘Planet Terror’ and ‘Deathproof’ sandwich a bevy of faux B-Movie previews. The directors have the cult aspect of these films down pat and their styles and aesthetics are so razor sharp that you get to see how good a B-movie can be when it is acted and directed with A talent. I promise that you will love every minute. There’s tons of hot ass chicks along with cars, zombies, guns, tits, blood, gore, sex, murder and of course, mayhem. F.Y.I. ROSARIO DAWSON doesn’t get naked though and still ‘Grindhouse’ might end up being this summer’s number one NetFlix choice. But for the price of a ticket nowadays it’s really the best bargain in movie-going without ‘plexing.
