The Internets Celebrities tour du force thru NYC drops again this Wednesday. Come with us to the neighborhood of my childhood, the center of New York City (when you look at an MTA subway map) – Corona, Queens.
In this episode we’ll explore the origins of the delicious dish mofongo.
I.C. NYC is must see TV, er, internets.
In another year your boy will be married. Chocolate Snowflake and I have considered where we will live and raise our family. Will we stay in Brooklyn? PrA’li not. For us to remain working class in Brooklyn you have to be pretty wealthy. We are considering relocating to Washington D.C. or possibly Philadelphia.
I can fux with D.C. and Philly. Both cities have the ‘big city’ appeal that I need. I have to be around people and I have to be around art. I would also like to live somewhere I felt like the social culture was unique and not homogenized. New York City itself is beginning to have that pasteurized feel. Sometimes I don’t even know I’m in NYC. Washington D.C. can be like that too.
I thought Philly was the last place that kept it really real. Maybe I got it wrong on this account also. Philadelphia has a concentration of colleges sited within the city. Penn State, Temple, Drexel, Lehigh, Villanova and St. Joe’s to name a few. But then why is this town so depressed and politically deactivated?
How do you let this beautiful building become dilapidated?
The building is called the Divine Lorraine Hotel. When it was purchased by Father Divine of the Universal Peace Mission Movement in 1948 it was the first of its class in Philadelphia, ne, the United States, to be fully racially integrated.
Believing that all people were equal in the sight of God, Father Divine was involved in many social welfare activities as well. For example, after purchasing the hotel, several parts of it were transformed for public use. The hotel’s first floor kitchen was opened as a public dining room where persons from the North Philadelphia community were able to purchase and eat low-cost meals for 25 cents.
The building was closed in 1999 and sold in 2000 by the International Peace Mission. In May 2006 it was resold to Philadelphia developer Michael Treacy, Jr. to be converted into condominiums. Treacy, instead of redeveloping the building gutted the Divine Lorraine of all the classic interior’s fixtures and architectural ornaments. Treacy then left the building in tatters to the squatters and the vandals.
I’d like to believe that Philadelphia can once again be as great as it was when the Divine Lorraine Hotel was a beacon for the best in man, but if Philly can’t put itself back together again this humpty dumpty is gonna have to consider moving to New Hampshire.
Derek Jeter is a greater Yankee than Yogi, Mickey and Joe D. Jeter is even greater than Babe Ruth, who wasn’t a Yankee for his entire career. Derek Jeter has amassed his marvelous record playing all of his major league games in the world’s greatest city for the games most notorious owners.
I don’t fux with the Yankees like that but I will give props when due and Derek Jeter is the greatest player to rock the pinstripes of that storied franchise. Take a look at the other players to reach that rareified air Jeter exists in.
True story, funny story about Q-Tip…
I know him as Jonathon from the days when Queens kids would occupy the IND platform at Queens Plaza and take those subways to their respective schools. The kids that congregated on the platform went to every make and model of school there was. Jarobi went to Brooklyn Tech and Tip went to Murray Bergtraum.
All I can tell you about ATCQ back then was that they went about their business like true professionals. There was no subway rhyme cipher. Truthfully, Q-Tip was as much about broads as he must have been about his beats. I feel like we butted heads [ll] from time to time chasing chicks from Norman Thomas HS.
Several years after high school and I see that A Tribe Called Quest is killing shit with Bonita Applebum. Until I saw the music video on Ralph McDaniels show I didn’t even realize how culturally significant Jarobi and Jonathon were to become. Their style was effortless and unique. ATCQ had my full support from that point forward. Sure, the music was dope, but these were also MY dudes making good.
I run into Q-Tip several months later at Powerhouse nightclub wearing a Tribe Called Quest tee. I loved that t-shirt and one of my exes (read: jumpoffs) got me for that joint just like the first Tribe album cassette which I ended up buying three(3) times. When Jonathon saw my shirt he got all tight and said to his homey, “Look at this nigger.”
I was like, “What?”. Tip asked me, “Where did you get that shirt?” I told him that I bought it at a skateshop downtown. I bought it from my dude who used to piece me Stussy shirts and Fresh Jive caps at this shop on Varick Street. What did it matter since I was repping his band was my response. Then he told me that none of the money from that shirt I was wearing was going to support the group, that his artwork’s copyright was being used without his permission.
Q-Tip’s complaints didn’t make any sense to me at the time like they do now, but in the same instance I think he was getting a lesson in piracy and commercial art. If you don’t want someone to steal your ideas you might should prA’li just stop thinking. And if you ever have a good idea, you best be having another one.
ATCQ was a great idea and NO ONE can ever take that away from Q-Tip.
The July 4th weekend is Chocolate Snowflake and my anniversary. When we met seven years ago we came to realize that we had been in the same place at the same time mostly all our lives. We just weren’t looking for one another until finally our world’s collided like the Hadron.
C.S. and I are musical beings because we love the sounds all around us. Rain on the window sill. Birds in the trees. The cars on Eastern Parkway. There is a rhythm in all of those things that is musical if you can open your mind to hearing it. That is the way you also find love. You have to be open to receive it, just like music.
The day didn’t begin on such a great note for us. I wasn’t feeling in top shape. My diabetic condition isn’t getting better on its own and before I have to do something drastic like taking insulin I am trying some other methods and formulas. I just wasn’t feeling it that day tho’ and C.S. understood and was willing to just stay home with me and nurse me back into the fight.
I wasn’t going out like that this time tho’. Roy Ayers was performing at Central Park SummerStage and this was our anniversary dammit. I mean, everybody loves the sunshine…
Roy Ayers was preceded on the stage by the Jazz Mafia Symphony. Leave it to some dudes from San Francisco to try and keep jazz alive. I’m sure it will be some Bay Area Berkeley ass rappers who try to save Hip-Hop also. There has to be something funky in the water over there.
Jazz Mafia then brought out some grade school kids from the Harlem School of the Arts to play behind Ayers’ seminal classic ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’. It was quite magical. The star of the show was this little blind Black boy on the keys. When I say that he killed it, please believe he merc’ked it. My apologies to this camera phone quality video.
Seeing those young people on stage was actually reassuring in the sense that art was being passed down to another generation. We rarely witness that passing of the torch in rap music because of the fake scarcity of resources that is promoted in rap culture. That principle will be a discussion for another drop because this post is all about Chocolate Snowflake and me.
When the Roy Ayers concert wrapped up we had a few choices left for our day. We could scramble ourselves back home to sit on the steps of the Brooklyn Museum of Art and people watch the 1st Saturday partygoer procession. 1st Saturday was where we shared our first dance together. The legendary story is all about the foot massage that I offered C.S. on the steps of the museum after the dance party had ended. She accepted, and the rest as the story goes is his story.
The deejay set at 1st Saturday was done by my friends from the Freedom Friday party so I know the vibe was sky high at the museum. The Freedom Friday crew was motivating over to Brooklyn Bowl to do a dance party there afterwards so we decided to make BK Bowl our next stop. I’m sorry that I missed the KeiStar BBQ on Washington Avenue since that was also one of the places that C.S. would run into me that fateful first weekend seven years ago.
We were met at BK Bowl by C.S. younger sister who immediately recognized that DJ J-Period had on the SAME t-shirt from the Roots Picnic in Philly. She asked J if he needed her to buy him another shirt. J-Period claimed to have other shirts but ionno. Big up to Toronto emcee Shad for blessing me with that shirt also. The party at Brooklyn Bowl was a perfect endcap for the day. My mood and my physical condition had improved along the way.
Shoutout to my folks from Pardon Me Duke who happened to be in the place to be celebrating the PMD founder’s new year. Another anniversary made perfect by great music and good friends. For Chocolate Snowflake and I it was another year to renew our love and faith in one another. Brooklyn was the planet, and everybody loves the sunshine.
