odd notes and ends (flying to Richmond for the weekend)

Quote of the day:
"In heaven, the police are British, the engineers are German, and the cooks are Italian...
In Hell, the police are German, the engineers are Italian, and the cooks are British..."

- I spotted a non-brown person wearing Bata slippers in the security line!


... And yes I sneaked the picture without her noticing.


-- Post From My iPhone

PODCAST: DJ Shakes_2009-07-09 (Sitting on the Porch)

PODCAST ME:
Simply drag the orange podcast icon on the top left of this page into your iTunes. Or:

1. goto iTunes
2. click on Advanced
3. click on Subscribe to Podcast:
4. paste this URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/EngineEngine9


T R A C K L IS T I N G (approx 47 minutes)
http://hbshakes.blogspot.com
theme: Sitting on the Porch in Summer

[0:00] Intro - Me
[0:56] Paul McCartney & Wings - Mrs. Vanderbilt
[4:43] Canned Heat - Going up the Country
[7:27] Elvis Presley - That's All Right
[9:18] The Bellamy Brothers - Let Your Love Flow
[12:28] Slim Smith - Out of Love
[15:00] Bob Marley & The Wailers - Duppy Conqueror
[18:40] Van Morrison - Sweet Thing
[22:39] Simon & Garfunkel - The Only Living Boy in New York
[26:26] Donovan - Catch The Wind
[29:15] Janis Joplin - Me and Bobby McGee
[31:57] The Allman Brothers - Ramblin' Man
[36:31] Carole King - Smackwater Jack
[40:10] The Soggy-Bottom Boys - I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow
[44:15] Dennis Brown - Things In Life
.
Okay so it's summer, you're hot and you just like sitting around, drinking a cold one (my fave drink by a country mile is Coke), and listening to music. Well hopefully this podcast is the kinda music you'd wanna be listening to. Laid back, old rock, reggae, and folk. What more do you want?

I kept the mixing to a minimum because I just liked letting the songs be....and by the way, how awesome is the song "Catch The Wind" by Donovan?


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greetings from Section 126, Row A, Seat 19

Citi Field. Dodgers 4, Mets 5

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Frying Pan (26th & West Side Highway)

There are only 4 things I like in this world, they are in no particular order:
1) Cheap but good food
2) Good music
3) Bicameral legislatures
4) Boats

The Frying Pan has 3 out 4, which isn't too shabby. The best part is that they weren't resigned to playing just clubby songs or hip hop...they went deep, so deep I put her a## to sleep...I mean...uhh...they played a healthy dose of early '90s freestyle.

Hellooo Noel and "Silent Morning"


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quote of the day

"I love food and food loves me. It doesn't leave me"
- fat Indian cooking instructor



-- Post From My iPhone

stop giving me the finger (2nd & 2nd)

NY rocks and why my latest sighting 't been on like every street sign is beyond me.

If you look really closely (blown up in the bottom right) someone put black tape over parts of the "Don't Walk" red hand....so that when it lights up it gives you the finger.

This is just fantastic.

It's like street safety in the wrappings of NY grit. It's like the sigh is saying "Hey, fuck you, stop walking muthahfuckah. Also get me a sandwich. Muthahfuckah. "


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Michael Jackson, lyrics, & Bubbles the Monkey

One of the coolest things about last weekend in New York is that almost everywhere I went I could hear people playing Michael Jackson loudly. Every bar had a small MJ tribute, stores were playing him, cars were blaring him (myself included), and I say this without exaggeration.... his music seemed like it was everywhere. It's one of things where you feel kinda cool about where you live.

In the days that have passed since Michael Jackson died I have found myself listening to a lot of his music. I definitely liked his songs and had a lot of his music, but honestly I would rarely ever walk around with my iPod actively looking for Billy Jean.

Well like I said in the past few days I've been listening to his songs a lot and really really listening to the lyrics. I've gotta say that as much as I heard his music, I didn't spend a ton of time thinking about what he was saying because it just sounded good

BUT I've started really thinking about the actual lyrics are....and I've gotta say, half the time I'm like - uh - what the hell is going on here?

Let's take a the epic classic "Wanna be starting something." Almost nothing makes sense in this song. Nothing. And yet it's a classic. Let's run through a snibbit of the song and look at my inner thoughts:

Lyrics	My Inner Thoughts
I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'	this part I know well we all know it well…
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'	…singing along…
I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'	…still singing…
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'	…well this is just good…
It's Too High To Get Over (Yeah, Yeah)	Wait, what’s too high to get over?
Too Low To Get Under (Yeah, Yeah)	What am I trying to get under?
You're Stuck In The Middle (Yeah, Yeah)	I’m lost here, where am I stuck?
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah)	Hmm, pain IS thunder. Speak the gospel Rev
It's Too High To Get Over (Yeah, Yeah)	Okay we’ve established this…
Too Low To Get Under (Yeah, Yeah)	…and I still don’t know what “IT” is
You're Stuck In The Middle (Yeah, Yeah)	I hate being the middle. Like Jan Brady.
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah)
You're A Vegetable, You're A Vegetable	Wait what?
Still They Hate You, You're A Vegetable	Back-up for a second, I’m a vegetable?
You're Just A Buffet, You're A Vegetable	Why do they hate me? I’m a buffet?
They Eat Off Of You, You're A Vegetable	What the fuck Michael!?!? What just happened here?
If You Cant Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah) Then Don't Have A Baby (Yeah, Yeah) And Don't Think Maybe (Yeah, Yeah) If You Can't Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah) You'll Be Always Tryin' To Stop That Child From Cryin' Hustlin', Stealin', Lyin' Now Baby's Slowly Dyin'	Jokey joke aside, this verse is borderline brilliant. I never thought about the social commentary that was goin’ on here. Children. Poverty. Hopes. Dreams. Aspirations. It’s all right here.
Interlude of other choruses repeated
Help Me Sing It, Ma Ma Se, Ma Ma Sa, Ma Ma Coo Sa Ma Ma Se, Ma Ma Sa, Ma Ma Coo Sa	..whew…man that was a trip. This part wit the African chanting may be the most normal part of the song….and that’s saying something.

Can you imagine what the record label must have said when they heard the lyrics? I'm sure at some point a curious record executive MUST have said the following:

Um Michael, yeah HI, hi....um soo I don't want to infringe on your artistic rights or anything, but we were sorta just wondering about some of the things in this song. Now I'm not even gonna go into the whole 'what's too high to get over, too love to get under' business because I get it... I GET IT...you're stuck. I've been stuck. You've been stuck. You have a monkey. Bubbles. I'm not gonna ask about that. But when you said the line...um...how do you say...eh..."you're a vegetable" was that like a...what was the thinking here. Was this some sorta metaphor? Because if it was you say in the next line "you're a buffet." So that seems pretty literally. I mean is this a buffet composed of only vegetables, or perhaps are you a vegetable in the human development lack of control over bodily functions way? Just throw me a bone MJ, I need a litle guidance...

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"The rise of club music, the fall of apartheid - coincidence or not?"

Is it just me or does like every cab in the city now have the faux-tagged Bruno promos?

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hello brooklyn.

Smith Street, Brooklyn

Ah yes, eating yummy Peruvian food. Or as Indian people would say, Mexican food.


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the Brown Card / how tan are you?

Some of the most difficult questions that humans can ask about ourselves and the world around us are times very very basic ones:

- How does the strong nuclear force work and keep an atom's nucleus from splitting apart?
- Why does e, the natural log, appear so often in nature?
- Why weren't cargo pants invented earlier?

In the Indian World the main question that all desis ask is much simpler...it isn't the questions above. We know math. Oh we know math all right. You don't need to tell a brown person twice about natural logs to get them excited.

But I digress.

No no no, this Indian Question hits much more to the core of humanity.

When meeting new people, this question is there.
When reading someone's biodata, this question appears.
When discussing others behind their backs, this question prevails...

The Question?

...WHAT DOES A "WHEATISH" SKIN TONE LOOK LIKE?

Well my friends ask no longer, because for a limited time, I present to you:


Indian people come in all shades in brown. A cornucopia of colors if you will. But for whatever reason there is a taboo (like in so many progressive cultures...) against saying you're anything more than slightly dark brown. But how do you tell your skin color then?

Well wait no more. Desis against all chromatic odds, come in only two shades: Fair and Wheatish.
Fair of course is the easy one. It's not really a character judgment so much as it's a view that a person is pigmentally challenged.

On the flip side desis have found a shade of brown and clung onto it. The shade: "wheatish."

So I ask again, what the hell is "wheatish" ?

Now I've this phrase ever since I was a little kid, but the fact is when you meet people how are you supposed to compare people skin tone to this specialized cultivated grass? Well my friends, wonder no more. With the patented Brown Card (now with 27 shades of brown!) you can compare people you meet in bars, clubs, and your local paan stand with the shades from the card...and PRESTO! You can see if they're really Wheatish as they claim or more like Russet or Bole.


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