Rubber Room had good beats, but did nothing with them, lyrically, and were quite dull. Mr. Lif is always pretty good, kind of a local hero cult figure. Intelligent lyrics. DJ Apollo did some absolutely ridiculous stuff on the turntables, and Souls of Mischief were decent. They had a really good flow of vocals, working simultaneously or in layers very smoothly. And the crowd was live, which is rare for this club.

4/6 Realizing today (apropos of nothing) that I am considerably older than the guys I was dating/into when I was young who I thought were so much older than me. make sense? Summer camp for example, he was a counselor. he was TWENTY. a mere babe (yes indeedy!).

4/5 I went out record shopping this weekend. lovely. hit Beehive Culture, a reggae store way out far from me. Slid for an hour and a half by bus, spanned two and a half in the store, picking out singles, talking about music, eavesdropping on creole and patois. On the bus, looking, listening, and gettin furious. riding through the poor section of town, primarily people of african descent live and work here. You know, some folks still say, as annie points out,: "you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it," true but sometimes the problem is NOT ENOUGH MONEY. there's nothing this part of town needs more than a shitload of money thrown at it. continually. unlimited credit, please, for local businesses. flower open those boarded-down storefronts. more money for street cleaning f'godssakes. and bus maintenance. Chatted with a nice evangelical lady while waiting for the second bus. "are you saved?" "actually I'm chosen." allright i said "actually I'm jewish." chosen people woulda been funnier, but she's on a mission and who am I to steal wind? I came home with a stack of tiny vinyl. the weirdest, most creative music, production and vocal-wise, is dancehall reggae. werd.

On Sunday I got more work on my arm. 31/2 hours of tatting. Now I feel intensely sunburned, a little swollen, but sated with color. greens, this time, as he wiped me down i shed blood vulcan-stylee.
I usually bring a movie to watch over the tattooist's shoulder, and this time I brought "The Thing" A horror-suspense thrillah with a killah ending. the gore is really silly, but it's nobullshit, there's no busty babe to scream. it's an arctic adventure: men with beards gettin paranoid and weird, with a beast who can feast and inspire fear. And the two black characters don't die first, and one of them doesn't die atall. how's that for progress, yo. Anyway, there's an alien who can mimic any living thing, and each cell of it is complete and will fight to survive. So our hero (kinda) has to test the surviving guys to see who's human. He draws blood from the three guys, then menaces the blood in a petri dish with a hot needle. One blood-batch leaps up and shrieks, tries to escape. My friend looks up from my arm to say "that makes no sense. why does he have to draw blood? he could just stick them with the needle." In all seriousness, I say to him "ram, nobody would let somebody just stick them with a needle... uh. never mind" as he looks at me, my half-tattooed-arm in hand and needle in the other hand. heh. stupid things i've done.

4/2 On the Sunday the Christians celebrate Easter, my mom and I used to have our own tradition. We'd go to a Celtics game. Back then they were a really good team, and my mom was a fan. that's the kind of basketball I dig, really the '70s stylee, the passing game, running and passing passing and running. On Easter we'd take the train out to the Boston Garden, get a couple of hot dogs and sit up high, soaking in the noise and the excitement. At first I'd watch my mom for cues: a cry , a shout, a cheer. She'd clap her hands in excitement of the plays, explaining strategy to me, or commenting on her favorites and least favorites. I grew to enjoythe beauty of the game, too, the elegant interplay between team members. this was back when the Celtics were tops, and the fans were generous, applauding play by the other side. When the knicks were clearly winning one year in the eastern final of the Playoffs, the crowd started chanting "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!" in the final quarter. ah, regional pride.
the Dad would pick us up in the mayhem on the street, and we'd head to the home of a Polish family where we'd eat enormous amounts of easter food, sweets, Polish Meatballs. Hordes of kids ran amuck outside and in. I went back to that Easter party last year, eating mostly sweets and chips (since I've been vegetarian for 10 years, about t he last time I went there). a new crop of kids, a few of my gebneration shyer and quieter, we all wanted to hang out with the adults now, who were a little greyer. i realized that all these folks knew each other from the 1970s in Boston, the anti-war movement, the teachers strikes, the anti-nuke rallies, and union organizing. It was an intense group of people, now that I was old enough to ask questions.

4/1 right on 'voice, for this, thanks to the brilliant annie for the link.
Almost to the end of the week again. I'm having writers' block on a paper I've been working on FOREVER (an incomplete, reminds me why I never take them). About the fully-fashioned hosiery industry in the US in the 1930s. I should probably be working on it right now. hah.
The sun is sinking behind white sky, rain coming this afternoon. But this weekend holds promise, and a lost hour. I've been seeing tons of movies, lately. True Crime, the new Clint Eastwood flick, and Book of Life, the new Hal Hartley. Plus last night I saw two noir films: Cry Wolf (Errol Flynn and Barbara Stanwyck) and the classic Double Indemnity. Man. Those noir flicks... To think that that was what Hollywood came out with, such a twisted and bleak movie, with such an ending. so much more daring than nowadays. the hats, the everpresent sun-through-venetian-blinds, the night scenes, the shoulder pads. The snappy dialogue to make you wish you could speak like that. Errol Flynn says the *dirtiest* line to Barbara Stanwyck. check it out:
"I'd like to probe your sphinx-like exterior"
Say it out loud. heh. dirty.