Bi-coastally Challenged

Everyone is baffled.

How can it be?

She, from a small wooded Humboldt town living in Brooklyn!

But it makes so much sense.  Check out the chart:

HUMBOLDT / NYC

Tallest trees in the world / Tallest buildings in the world  =

awesome.

Festivals  in the mOOnlight / Parties all night every night =

reggae.

Organic food / Member-run food coop =

groovy.

Hippies / Rastas =

rebels.

Conceptually open to diversity / Really dealing with diversity =

colorful.

People who like to but don’t know how / Wicked circles in Central & Prospect Parks =

drumming.

Arcata Farmer’s Market / Pedestrian run streets =

nice people.

Fuel efficient vehicles / The train =

ideals.

This summer, I sorta wish I could be in Humboldt during the day to enjoy the views and smells and I wish I could be in Brooklyn at night to go to the reggae parties.  Then again, I love Humboldt’s big night sky and I dig the characters that cruise the streets of Brooklyn during the day.  This time of year, there are boat rides on the Hudson happening – imagine your favorite reggae sounds bumping while you eat fruit and look out at the Manhattan skyline.  Ultimately, New York can’t touch California’s epic outdoor reggae festivals and California can’t hold a candle to New York’s 4 am party curfew.  The people are simple and naturally glowing in California, but the combinations of ethnicities in people in New York City are breathtaking.  People in California are pretty chill and working as little as possible to stay at their comfort level, while New Yorkers are working hard to survive; multiple jobs, long hours, always on the grind, never enough.  I love being a Humboldt-born woman in Brooklyn – I appreciate the awesome reggae, the groovy rebels, the colorful drumming, the nice people, and the ideals.  I didn’t know that when I moved off my mountain top in Humboldt to see the world that I’d end up in New York City, but obviously, the Divine knew just what to deliver.

Peace, Love, and Majestic Journeys………………………………

California Meets Brooklyn! 9 May 2009

My first party in New York City ……. it was fully irie and I broke even! Lots of work. Lots of fun!

Conversation Shorts

at Vinyl Reggae Party in Williamsburg last weekend………………

Abdul Nassar from Morocco:  “L’horizon’ it’s where the sky meets the ocean.”

Me: “What’s your favorite color?

A. Nassar:  “You.”

Me:  “You lookin at azure.  The color of the Caribbean Sea.”

_____________________________________________________

28 February 2009

Never take anything for granted.

Honor traditions.

Eat healthy.

Tips from a man on the Q Train Platform who had just got a job doing telemarketing.  Starts on Monday.  Told me about an advertising position, actually 22 positions open and 90 applicants lined up on the street for it..  Crazy 1920s imagery, huh?!  Former Wall Street bankers, corporate execs, accountants, all shuffling their resumes and hoping.

____________________________________________________

Dub is a Weapon (Dub Band in Manhattan)

Smoke the herb
Light the Incense.

What are my fears?
I don’t want to be alone.

~~~~~

My kind of people – - NYC.

I want to do journalism out here!
Will Africa detract or add to that dream?
Ask this question of friends out here.

~~~~~

The night was so high
that i didn’t even see the musicians as
Gods.

I’d try, but I couldn’t do it.

The music – - Dub
it’s the Most High Jah’ s music.
It’s holy – - when i heard the saxophone erupt into a solo – it was a serenade,
a plea, a poem, a
herald to God.

It’s true about the angels playing horns in Heaven -
and after that, I think
it’s the drums.

Drums are our ancestors.

~~~~~

I want someone to dance on, and I mean that in the sweetest way.  Have
flirtatious innocent
fun.

~~~~~

I told this guy about how I liked (in the 6th grade sense of the word, like oh la la) a guy who is born 2 days after me in the same year so we are both aquariuses and dragons and how it’s like liking myself!  i feel like how people might feel when they are attracted to me.  I sense his passion and his aloofness equally and it peaks my interest!  anyway……..for some reason i was telling some random person at the club tonight about that briefly and he said: Maybe you and Michael are distant, millennia old distant cousins.

Me: Oh good.  That allows me not to like him like that any more.  what a relief.

He: No, no, no – that’s Royalty!

Me (in my head): oh, i like that! Royalty!  I just need some explanation as to why I met him.  Why sometimes you can’t tell if interactions and energy shared with someone is just the big moment or if it’s forever or what it is.  I guess i’ll just say it’s eternal regardless.  Eternal Dub. Like the band tonight, Dub is a Weapon.

Dub is a Weapon…………………..
He: doesn’t it all sorta sound the same?

Me: yeah, there’s no beginning and there is no end.

He:  eternal

Me: dub.

2 Humboldt Natives Rollin in New York

The 2 girls rolled through NYC and Brooklyn like it was Reggae on the River;  making friends everywhere they went, dancing incessantly, shopping, eating – their time together was pure pleasure.  Bed always at 1am if not 4am – a nap during the day, but going going going from one adventure to another, never quite knowing what would be found around the corner:  break dancers and boom boxes in the subway? A drum circle calling up Haitian juju in Central Park? Negotiations in a Beemer SUV with 2 homies from Jamaica and Nigeria?  Except for Eva getting spit on by a stranger in Chinatown who was apparently not fond of eye contact – Eva’s trip to visit Aia had been purely positive.

The sheikest lesbian (or “girls club” as they say here) club in Manhattan – meeting the hottest DJ in the nation at No Malice Palace in the the Lower East Side -  Bucket loads of rain in Soho – the stink of Chinatown. ….so many senses tantalized in NYC in 10 days.. .. The haven of Prospect Park in BK, resting on the blue psychedelic cloth Aia got for free at a “garage” (but they don’t have garages here so I don’t know what they say…) sale in Prospect Heights.  Looking up from the blanket watching the wind tickle the leaves of the trees, gazing at all of the little birds congregating and flying away then back. The Earth is the living, breathing, vibrating center of us all – wow- holding up the tallest buildings in the world on the island of Manhattan. Impressive shit!  Dong said that Manhattan is actually a big rock.

The common sentiment that both Eva and Aia shared was this place is so much fun! Would it continue to be like this over a longer period of time? ( Aia thought perhaps so, having been there for 2 months and the fun hadn’t slowed a bit.)

Is it okay to be having fun like this? This much of it?  One almost felt or thought about feeling guilty about it. But that would take the fun out of it! Ha

Now, on their separate airplanes going back to Humboldt County, an utterly opposite yet equally inspiring place – Aia was thinking about all the great projects awaiting her at home. But also thinking about what Brooklyn held for her upon her return in October.  The dancing wouldn’t stop – that was a given part of life in NYC. Okay, got that settled. Her aim would be to feel out a journalist position in radio.  Meanwhile, she’d immediately join the  Food Coop around the corner and get cheap organic food (The North Coast Coop in Humboldt is a hoax and a rip off!) and make new friends.  She’d sign up for work-study at the dance center in The City.  And somehow, this time around, she’d like to have a domestic routine which included reading a book, writing a letter a week, and writing in her journal as often as possible.

The Earth revolving, heading in a Divine direction not entirely known by humans – would it take her to another country to teach?  Would it lurch her into a radio roots and culture portal?  Aia had so many dreams – which one would be delivered? Or, would it be like how this all even started?  With an unexpected phone call inviting her to live and work with for the summer – Aia had never even thought for a second of wanting to live in NYC, but found herself instantly captured and enchanted.  So who knew what was next?

It’s a mystery to be revealed in time.

Aquarius Party in Brooklyn….. to the utter delight of Aia herself!

Protect the Integrity of Eureka xo!

Dear Friends,

I’m sending this to all of my Eureka world friends  and  it’s crazy, my blood is boiling over this issue!!!!!  Or
maybe it’s running cold, but I’m shocked and saddened by what is about to happen this month in the McKay
tract.

If you don’t know the McKay tract, I myself was reminded of it when Matt Creason took me on a big walk there this fall.  It’s that huge,  7 thousand acres of wild forest and prairies and life that spans behind Redwood Acres out to Cutten and over to the Muni Golf Course and I don’t know where else.  It’s beautiful there with casual paths and all sorts of different little habitats, full of mystery and quiet and when you walk there, no matter what kind of person you are, your imagination expands and you have good talks with your friend and feel reassured about life and meanwhile get good exercise!

I’ve been hearing for about 2 years now how slowly, acreage by acreage logging companies and builders are going to be cutting it all down for money and housing and here it is, the word is out….within the month Green Diamond (Simpson) Logging Co. will begin clear-cutting and ruining it all!

It makes me want to come home from Brooklyn to stop it because it’s the last wild place left in Eureka and if they take it it’s gone (virtually) forever!  Brooklyn may be the big bad city, but they have preserved a beautiful and huge space for Prospect Park and it’s my refuge here; it’s nothing like the McKay tract, but still, it keeps me sane. I want Eureka to have the wisdom to keep its last remaining open space where creatures and humans can roam and relax together.  I don’t care about any argument for cheapo housing or money or a mall (all plans very much in the works. contact city/county officials/tell your friends ASAP!) – - that can’t even compare with God, Mystery, Health, Imagination, Love.  And that’s what the McKay tract is.  If it goes, all  we’ll have is filthy Sequoia Park’s little smidgen of the old world, and that’s not enough.

Thanks for listening.  I haven’t been this fired up in a long long time. It’s this and the Community Park in Garberville that have really awakened me to how important it  is for us people to be able to meet each other in nature.  Pavement just doesn’t cut it. I could go on and on, but you all feel me…………

Thanks for the respect you have shown by reading this…..
XO and sincerely and oh yeah, if you do nothing else, go
park your car by Redwood Acres and go take a walk in Her
Majesty QUICK!

p.s. The following is from a community group that is rallying together to do something/anything to stop the cutting/paving and open this to public input!  This is our clean air and quality of life; our neighborhood!  Check out the info…..

Hey , Thanks so much for your continued support of the McKay Tract. In less that one month, Green Diamond is scheduled to being clear-cutting this beautiful forest. Time is of the essence! Yesterday the company illegally felled at least 10 small trees in Unit B of the Timber Harvest Plan (THP).  Please also mark your calendar for our McKay Tract Coalition Community Meeting on Friday, Jan. 30 at the HSU campus — Nelson Hall room 106, 6pm. This will be a gathering to synergize the strength of various groups, individuals, and campaigns that are all fighting for the same thing: Saving the Forest. You may also check savemckay.org for additional updates. There’s a new video out on the McKay Tract, take a look.

Live Notes at Vintage Reggae Scene – summer 08

I feel like I’m living one of my dreams.  It feels like that period in New York when the “subversive” whites hung with the blacks in the herb-filled smokey clubs listening to blues and jazz. Yeah, it’s Aia’s Harlem Renaissance……

I’m here at the “No Malice Palace” in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.  Heard about it through a Myspace bulletin and through a contact made via Myspace also – Deadly Dragon Sound – the biggest vintage reggae record store in the country, located in Chinatown, Manhattan. Queen Majesty is the hottest DJ in the nation according to URB magazine (Eva Starr in RioDell turned her on to me) and I introduced myself to her tonight (although I Myspaced her months ago, when I first learned I’d becoming to NYC).  Bought her a beer.  Very nice, considerate young lady (my age).  Told me that she first got turned on to reggae at the age of 17 when her boyfriend was in a ska band and exposed her to old Jamaican music.  How funny, same story with me!  I fell in love with reggae around the age of 18 via my first boyfriend to be.  We both played basketball at C/R and one day I went to his apartment on Humboldt Hill and I distinctly remember walking in and exclaiming as the reggae bass boomed out the speakers, “this beat matches the beat of my heart!”  I’ve been listening almost exclusively ever since.

So, I’ve been sitting here in this lounge of a bar with only candle light or red lightbulbs.  Nice cats hanging out around. This era of reggae is a whole genre in itself that doesn’t get a forum in Humboldt County. It’s vintage – rock steady, I think.  So great!  I think even my mom would like it.  It’s got that 1950s/60s pop sound only a little rougher Jamaica stylee.

The only thing missing is that sweet smell of ganjah.

Turning Back the Pages to My 9th Day in NYC – Summer 2008

3 July 2008

My dad reminded me how important it is that I keep a journal of my experiences in NYC.  He (and I think maybe Tregs and Steve Garrett) wrote during their epic trip to Scotland and so the stories are recorded and will live on after they do.  It’s true; Tregs is already gone.  Where are his journals from that trip anyway?  I should get a hold of those for safe keeping!

So, here I am lounging at Dong’s cute little apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  It’s a neighborhood/Burrough appreciated for not having tourists annoying around.  It also has tons of restaurants, groovy little grocery stores, cafes, bars, basketball courts…..all, one after another amongst narrow, often one way, one lane streets.  Brick and brownstone homes lining  the streets – all very classic and fitting all that imagery from t.v. about Brooklyn. To me, it’s the Cosby Show come true.

Dong’s apartment is tiny and she sectioned off an area for me to put my airmattress (that she bought for me) and stuff.  It’s like when I was a kid and Marybeth and I shared a room and had “sides.”  She moved her couch in such a way to give me room to be and cleared out a few shelves so I can put my stuff somewhere.  Her generosity approaches mythical proportions.  It’s a life-time experience she has given me – a gift I’ll never forget.  I’ll forever be grateful.  She gives me directions and takes time to hand make maps.  She’s a beautiful person.  Is there already a Goddess of Generosity or could this really be her before me?

The first day I was here (I’ve been here 9 days now) I went to an african dance class.  I walked there and got a little lost and was late, but nevertheless participated.  Since then,  I’ve changed to a different studio and have seen a great deal of male teachers which is not what Humboldt county is like.  The variety and bounty of dance classes has got to be the best in all the world:  Asian, reggae, dancehall fusion, belly, house, haitian, salsa, samba, and that’s just a taste.  The studio I go to has a History of Dancehall class!  I could occupy ALL of my time on just feasting on my interests.  I could never work and just play and dance!

But really, NYC is so expensive!  I could not survive here.  Dong works nearly 70 hours a week to make it. And although she has saved a lot – enough for a down payment on a house – she lives simply and mindfully and compared to the rest of NYC, modestly.  I couldn’t do it- there is too much superb shopping.  I bought a pair of $175 shoes on my 2cd day here.   The most expensive pair I’ve ever bought. I stay out of the stores now because I can’t afford it and I know I’d give into temptation and use my credit card.  So, I’ve only spent money on food and dance classes and an $80 month-long subway pass.

Back to the dance classes – they’re packed (40 ish students).  The teacher is actually the owner of the studio and he commands the room of african dance students and somehow we all learn.  It’s great to have a beginning class because in Humboldt there are only a couple of classes and you’re thrown in with the advanced and have to hang on.  Also, in NYC, the african dance classes have a moment of call and response, so us dancers get to do a bit of singing!  I absolutely love it and feel as gleeful as I do powerful!

As for observations – I spend Monday through Thursday in Chinatown at my teaching job.  I don’t even consider it China”town” – it’s China.  There are few tourists.  It’s the real deal.   A lot of people walk around with umbrellas used for sun protection.  The streets are curvy and very narrow.  All signs are in Chinese.

NYC – I am amazed at all of the cutlures.  I hear at least as many other languages as English.  However, it is very segregated and that’s sort of a bummer.  The subway is great – all the people are on that and I pretend to be one of them frowning and looking bored, but really I’m relishing the moment.

Oh yes – I love the life, the culture – the man playing the accordian in the train station like the Amelie soundtrack (French flick) – an old world sound.  The calypso drums spreading sunshine underground as I stand in the train and the doors open to the platform and let people and island rhythms in.  Music is everywhere!  Walking in Union Square to dance class and the Hare Krishnas are chanting and playing flutes as people watch as they go by or others, like me, sit near on some steps and enjoy.  I feel bohemian….There is a neighborhood for every aspect of yourself.  I went to Williamsburg last night – Where Dong says the hipsters hang out.  I like the word – hipster.

What an experience – I thank you, Lord and family and friends for your support.  Who am I without you?

XO

4:20am Dancing and Conversating at Vanderbilt and Bergen Streets, BK

Winston from Guyana

How he got here (to this pimpin spot in Brooklyn) was

Karma.

“I met people who were friendly and decent….We stayed connected and they got me a primo apartment in Prospect Heights.  Close to the trains, next to the [Brooklyn] Museum; its like 5th Avenue in Manhattan.  You know 5th avenue?  It’s -” and here he pinched his fingers together and kissed them while I filled in the blank, “Primo.”

He made that same fingers-to-lips hand motion again moments later after he learned I was from Northern California and he described the beaches in San Francisco.  I was complimented and felt a kinship in his recognizing the beauty of my region.  “I’ve been to Sacramento, too, ” he added next.

“What did you think of that?”  Aia asked with a grimace.

“I’ve lived long enough to not criticize a place. Every place got good and bad people.  ” Aia liked his respectful and reasonable answer and felt slightly ashamed for dissing the city.  A lot of people dissed Eureka, but it was her hometown and it had done her right.  Yeah, One love One People One Destiny, she thought as the reggae records scratched in the background of the candle-light red hued lounge. She loved New York’s theme of dark, red overtoned clubs.  Very sexy and underground and mysterious.  It conjured up imagery of the Harlem Renaissance, especially since she was one of the few white ladies who was ever out in this West Indian dominated scene.

Later Winston spins her around on the dancefloor without even touching her, his arms waving up and then mixing around, she moved by the push of his energy and giggling.  They sit back down at the round, red vinyl booth decorated with her journals and pens, a tangerine brought from home, water glass, and incense that a roaming man outside sold her calling it “Michelle and Barak.”  Aia loves it when people see her true self, “You dance like you’re in the jungle,” he says.

She dug that comment.  He was right, she felt wild and free and full of voodoo when she danced to reggae.  Aia liked this dude and then he explained his authority,  “I’m from the Amazon.  The Amazon is in South America, you know.  Guyana is in the Amazon Basin.”

Outside he smoked his cigarette (unfortunately) while she exclaimed how much fun she was having dancing with him. “Dancing,” he ruminated, ” it’s that old time religion.”

Unfortunately he turned a little screw-face on her soon after  when she created a bit of distance from his subtle come-ons, but hey, he was a groovy dancer and she liked his general philosophy and hey, she thought,

“that’s good enough for me.”

Birth of a Blog

Greetings, Friends and Family ~

Thanks for reading my first official post!  This is an experiment, a new endeavor of pleasure and I attach to it no expectations.  I do hope, however to eventually get past my frustrations of finding the right and affordable audio recording device so I can garner quality sounding interviews and give you that real glimpse into the amazing and intense lives of people living and working (or not working as is the increasing case) in New York City that I am so captured by.

In the meantime, I’ll use this public space to throw down my raw takes on the moment at hand, spiced with photos now and then, and we’ll let it roll like that and have fun if nothing else.

Thanks for all the thoughtful and insightful input on the naming of my baby blog.  Among the ideas were also some li’l poems and rhymes and ditties of all kinds:

Humboldt Belle in Brooklyn

FreeStylin Brooklyn

Freedom songs in the key of me

From the Skunk Train to the Q Train

Brooklyn’s Word on da Street

Brooklyn’s Age of Aquarius

Freedom’s Voices

AND THEN………………………………………………………………………………………………………… one emerged as I looked at a drawing on the wall that my Prosper Ridge spirit guide, Aunt Becky had done and given me upon her visit this November.  A drawing she had begun a year ago, far before I even knew I was coming to Brooklyn, let alone that she would come here and have an epic experience with me.   Notice the title she gave it

and for good measure, I added the great date of 2012 – if you’re not sure what that’s about, you’ll see with time, but it essentially refers to the Mayan calendar and other ancient understandings as well as scientific data about the Earth and solar system’s orientations/ magnetic fields that indicate dramatic transitions on the way that will in turn effect a new way of being, a new sense of time and culture  – - the Age of Aquarius!   It’s an exciting time to be alive and to know each other!  xo

I hope this blog serves up some decent entertainment for you and that since most of us are friends or acquaintances, we can here exchange thoughts, parallel experiences (or contrasting!), and use this blog as another option for communicating.  Yeah! Let’s penetrate through those old notions of space, time, and distance and dream together here and now!  I love you and you know it!  xo

P.S. You can subscribe to this blog so you don’t have to think to check it and instead it’ll say “hello” to you!  I love you and it’s time for me to get some beauty sleep! For real!