The Youth Done Been Restless

Belooba reps Amarillo and Outerspace hard.

Hey, party people in the place to be. Sorry I never came through with the free events blog Thursday, but, as usual, shit got hectic before I dipped northward. Here are two helpful resources for my New York heads planning your weekends: MyOpenBar and FreeNYC.The former favors the hipster strip and the latter evidently thinks 50 is a good rapper (August 9th's update), but hey, no site lives up to VIA standards...heh.

I just woke up a couple hours ago after a rather lethargic day with some fresh, itchy bite marks on my leg and arm and on my way to the medicine cabinent to Cortisone the hell out of em I crossed paths with the largest spider I have ever scene outside of a zoo setting chilling in the sink. I don't have a picture of said beast for obvious reasons--I'll take "Paralytic, mind-numbing arachnophobia for 1000, Alex"--but, uh, the idea that that mighta bit me makes me consider sleeping in a trash bag tonight. Yo, DZ, what's up with all these monster bugs?

Anyhow, back to the trip, much love to all the good people, old and new, whom I connected with. Shoutout to Rolando and Eli taking some much needed musical equipment to the raperos in Cuba and shown-proving that US hiphop is bigger than bling. Shoutout to Def Poets Dahlak (that ain't his picture, by the way) and Chinaka for unexpectedly blessing me with some live/living words Thursday night, along with Charan who I don't have a page for. Shoutout to Ms. Sasha over in España ahorita for hitting the Deitch Projects with me. For those of y'all unable to check out the installations by Barry McGee and SWOON, aquí están unas fotos: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Sunday, I and a coupla good folks waded through the Billburgers and the blogerati to see M.I.A at Central Park. We made a plan to leave like 3 hours ahead to make sure we got in and ended up sneaking in towards the front with a friend. Good thing, too, cuz the line was crucial.The show opened up to sound problems, rain threats, and lukewarm crowd response--especially during sets by DJ Rekha and Diplo (linked below)--but a hype-albeit-choppy-as-hell performance from special guest Mr. Vegas brought some ruckus to the set (though he didn't finish a single goddamn song), and Maya just tore shit up, WITH an encore (did we want more). I was too busy dancing and people watching to snap a lot of shots, but BIZ-IZ-ZAM. And no, I don't have any pictures of that white dancer shaking her tailfeather, so don't even ask me.

As bad as I've been over the last two days about recouping from the weekend, hitting up the Nati in 2 days is pretty unrealistic at this point, but Scribble Jam is looking particularly fiyah this year, it's tenth anniversary . I'm just wondering, though: is the inclusion of such dancefloor-friendly acts like DJs Cosmo Baker, Ayres, and Diplo in the mix, and Spankrock on the mic, URB-influenced or just a sign that the usual b-boys want to increase their chances of getting non-sausage play against Slug?

And before I'm out, if y'all didn't know already, FUCK THE P.G. PO-LEAST! Last Thursday marked the fourth time Cheverly police have stopped me to ask if I live in my own neighborhood. I'm like the most pedestrian cat up in here, yo--anyone who actually pays attention to area activity could tell you that. Next time the porkers stop me and ask where I live, I'm telling em to ask their mothers, fuckers.