The 3rd Journey...

Here is where I will try and document my 3rd trip down Dread Blvd.....that's right I have done this 3 times now and if its not a 'charm' I'm going back to the "bald-headed Black man" thing....

The first time was back in 2000 when I first came home from my 8 year stretch in Minnesota. I had never done anything that drastic to my hair before and so I had no real idea what it took....Mentally that is.

I went to a beauty shop that I found just down the street from where I was living, it was convenient and the shop was owned, operated and lived in by real Africans....I mean what could possible go wrong?!

Well, just about everything you could think of went wrong...but not the first 3 days....

I came home and my hair looked perfect. I was a completely different looking person....the looks I got were great, my family thought it was real cool, I was riding pretty high....

...that was a Saturday night ( day 1)...

Sunday (day 2)...I unwrapped my head from the du-rag, went into the bathroom to take a shower and looked in the mirror....Although my hair was still in the tight little black twist, they were all smashed flat on my head like 100s of flies all snuck under my du-rag in the middle of the night, ate all my hair and then committed ritual suicide...all without waking me up.

What really happened was the product the Africans used was black bee's wax.....and nothing else. Now, it looked great from the moment I walked out of the shop, all that night and 1 second before I layed my head down on the pillow....but now it looked more like some frat boys waited till I was knocked out from too much "sunshine in a can" and took a black sharpie to my shiny bald head.

I really didn't know what to do for a few minutes so I just started to rub on my head trying to lift up the dreads....it eventually worked and I felt a lot better...but my hands were freakin' sticky and the black of the bee's wax was too easily coming off my hair...the condition of the pillow case never came into my mind until after the shower and I noticed the inside of the shower cap had black marks all inside it....

...and so did my pillow case.....and the sheets.....and on straight through to the mattress...

Monday, day 3 and the first day back to work after the transformation.....

This is when I discovered this thing that white people do, I still don't have a name for it, but I'm pretty sure there should be. Since the day I left for college I have been surrounded by far more white people that any other race. I was ok with that...what was I going to do, it was the school I picked and I have lived it the southern suburbs of Chicago with white folks that will call you Nigga to your face and just stand there and dare you to blink too quickly....so trust me, MN was going to be a breeze. I never really have anything negative to say about MN...I will always tell people that its a pretty damn easy place to live.

I believe the phrase "If you have nothing good to say, you shouldn't say anything at all." was invented, perfected and passed down genetically into every white Minnesotan in the state. At the time I was in college every brutha was doing the bald headed black man thing.....you couldn't find a fade to save your life. Doing the baldheaded black man thing did have its disadvantages.

Many whites found it intimidating because most bruthas walked around with that "I will f*ck you up if you look at me again!!" look on their face. And white folks bought it ever single day because like every other news outlet in the country the media focus in MN was on how the negative black, Latino and Native American neighborhoods let loose on some poor innocent white folks that got lost on the very corner that's known for selling all kinds of drugs......this happened pretty much 3 times a week....More often around election time.

Anyway, MNs learned to never say anything to anybody about something that un-nerved them....they pretty much kept it to themselves in order to avoid a confrontation of any kind. I got use to this and learned to appreciate it. They pretended to believe the BS attitude you portrayed and you got to live, shop and eat pretty much anywhere you could afford because every white person you encountered had no idea that your preppie-ass had no intention of causing them or anyone any harm.....

...once again, I digress....

The point is, I got really comfortable with people NOT commenting on a new shirt or new jacket or new hair do....So I arrived at work and what I thought was typical white people behavior completely flipped on it's side. Every single one of them at work HAD TO say something....it was all good comments, but I knew 100% that they had no idea what they were looking at.

This is the thing that white folks do, that I can't figure out why they do it.....it was like none of them could be left out from saying something. I got some,"Wow, great new do!" to "Whoa, rahsta man!" all the way down to, "So, like what kind hair do is that called?" the always popular, "Did it hurt?" and my favorite,"Can I touch it?"

It was like, just because they were deprived of anything that resembled diversity throughout their life and we had being working together for a few weeks and went out for some drinks; this was their time to finally ask a "black man" everything they have been dying to know about black culture. It was truly disturbing because I really don't like that much attention to begin with and to get it from a group of people for many of them, I was the first black person they have ever known let alone speak to for longer than it took them to get through the drive through at McD's...

So what do you call that? What name can you put on something like that?

Next Blog, the reason the first trip and second failed....and it had nothing to do with white people.....I just had to get something off my chest.

And now, Door #3:

http://www.mastersatworkinc.com/index.php

This group, Masters at Work is one of the definitions as to why I love House Music as much as I do. Little Louie Vega is a House God in my eyes. The website isn't much to look at but learn the name, follow the group and some day you'll wont be able to put into words the feeling you get from listening Deep House Music

enjoy
DjD

Wedding bells and Jail cells....

Mr. and Mrs Mark Brown

Coming soon, a word about a nice wedding and the state Black folks in Cincinnati and the Main Street Entertainment district....

Stay Tuned...

And they called it, A Day Off....

Tomorrow Maron and I are off to a wedding in Cincinnati, but today I took the day off work....its a rare occasion, I have checked my work email 4 times already....I'm a workaholic, I have a sickness and I should seek help.

I had to take the car in for the Emissions test.....I breezed through since it was 11am on a Thursday morning, but it's all in all a waste of time. Your car really has to be on its last leg in order to not pass the emissions test.

After that I was able to make my way to the new Gramaphone Records store on Clark St. It's twice the size of the old store but it seems to have the same amount of records....odd. Anyway, I realized I really enjoy riding the train. Whenever I get the time (and money) to go record shopping, I take the Brown Line to the Diversey stop and walk from there.

Despite the extremely annoying Cub fans from the 'burbs that have no clue how to ride the train.....STOP EVERYTHING...

My girlfriend just called, I have to go meet her and her co-worker at the Bar.....

...to be continued...

...Monday, Sept. 5, Labor day...
Drinks with Maron's co-worker didn't last till Monday, I haven't drank that long since college, but this is a Blog covering my adult responsible life :)

Anyway, Wednesday night drinks were fun, and the drive to Ohio, was fun too....more to come.

And now, Door #3:

http://www.3degreesglobal.com/

3 Degrees Global is hands down the best deep'n'funky house collective that has ever existed. There philosophy is very simple, here is a short quote, "It is said that everyone on Earth is separated by at most six degrees of separation. It is our belief that like-minded individuals are separated by only three." Go to their website for the rest of the philosophy. They do produce their own tunes, but what they do best is put together a mix of tracks that always keep you going and by no means lets you down.

enjoy,
DjD

2+2+2 = Like Minded individuals

A night out at Ravinia...I'm guaranteed a beat down for posting
this pic with my girlfriends face looking like she is about to sneeze.....

I can't quite figure out if Ravinia is a town or just the name of the concert venue....nevertheless it's a stop on the Metra train....and its in the middle of nowhere...I mean that.

The Gypsy Kings were playing that night...we heard them...never saw them.

Let me explain how ravinia works: North of Chicago some genius decided to buy an extremely large parcel of land, carve out a large whole and mow down all the trees directly behind it. Inside the whole this "master of forward thinking" built a pavilion with a theatre seating for about 3200 human units.

If you are not one of these human units that paid the big bucks to sit in the pavilion, you are one of the thousands of human units, with less money, sitting out on the lawn...you know, that area I talked about where all the trees got mowed down. If you are one of the garden gnomes then the night isn't about seeing the artist...nor hearing them very well....its all about the camaraderie in 5 easy to follow steps:

Step 1: Pick your night (its not as easy as it seems, Chicagoans are feins for a concert),
Step 2: Grab your friends (the ones you enjoy talking to, otherwise it going to be a painful 3+ hours),
Step 3: Bring the wine (its the yuppilicious thing to do at Ravinia),
Step 4: Pack the food (what they lose in only charging $16 for lawn seating they make up for big time with food and drink),
Step 5: Enjoy....

Its just that easy.

And now, Door #3:

http://www.ubiquityrecords.com/

If you desire a music label the truly embraces every form of music outside of the mainstream commercial garbage we are subjected today and will be tomorrow, then Ubiquity Records will give you something you didn't even know you were looking for....and you will grow to love them for it.

enjoy,
DjD