Up Late Night, Blogging Like I'm On Patrol

Okay, I have Kanye on the brain these days. So a few candid reasons why: Because he wore a classic blue denim jacket this past winter so well that I almost wept for the Banana Republic men's version I'd given to Goodwill a couple years ago. Because he really is inexplicably sexy in a plain white tee in the Keri Hilson video for "Make Love." And because I love how vulnerable he sounds on "RoboCop" off his 808s & Heartbreak. "Okayyyy / okay, okay?" [giggles] But I also love the sweeping orchestral arrangement on that cut.

Last year, for a small piece I was writing, I had the pleasure of sitting in on New York Philharmonic rehearsals, during which conductor Lorin Maazel shook that baton at his orchestra. (One of the perks of being a New Yorker is that a few times a year the public can purchase $15 tickets for this experience.) The music on Kanye's lament brings me back to the intensity and pulsing emotion of those opening night rehearsals.

Let Me Ride

This past weekend marked the closing of the Queens Museum of Art's Q14 group exhibit. The museum, just a stone's throw from the temple-like CitiField, hosted eye-catching pieces by young artists living or working in Queens, from the superb photographer Justine Reyes, who showed part of her ongoing "Guayabera" portrait series, to Ryan Humphrey, whose "Fast Forward" (2009, DCKT Contemporary) featured 100-foot bike ramps mounted inside the museum and real bike pros doing demos on them, as well as artfully painted dirt bikes hanging on the facing wall like fine art.

Because the QMA knows how to throw a party on a sunny day, there was food, drinks, Mister Softee, and free bike and boat rentals. Of course, I had to get on, but not before stopping to admire the fresh bikes (a mini garden, a stocked pantry, and gleaming chrome were just a few of the attractions built onto bicycles). And the Indo-Caribbean bike gang from Richmond Hill, parked on tricked-out lowriders and giving the gangster glare? Not so menacing once you realized they were packing bike locks not heat. If you're one of those people whose mantra when it comes to art is, "Brooklyn Everyday," you should hop the 7 train soon.

The Notebook

The neighborhood I live in exposes me to more than my fair share of Asian kitsch. So instead of, say, blocks of stores peddling African sculpture and shea butter like you might find on Lenox Ave. in Harlem, I wake up to Morning Glory. The Korean outpost offers a cornucopia of prepubescent Hello Kitty pencil cases, Chococat hair ties, and tote bags.



Whether it's my hard-knocking nostalgia that kicks in every time I set foot in one of these stores (my mom indulged my H.K. jones like crazy when I was little! Stickers, stationery, erasers, toothbrushes), or just that there's something so cheerful about the color pink, I don't know. But I stay up whenever I'm browsing. The 11-year-old girl in me has taken to collecting quirky notebooks ($0.99-$3.50), with price tags that are much more palatable than the to-die-for Sanrio/NEC notebook PCs (above) sold in Japan only. My perference is for bound not spiral, lined not blank, and they have to be pint-size and skinny (clutch-worthy). The one I'm jotting ideas in now is plain blush with the words 'PINK IS SWEET' on the cover.

Ladies Crack a Bottle With Ray J

First of all, let's clear the air and just admit that you were watching VH1's champagne-soaked dating show For the Love of Ray J. Yes, I know, I know, you could barely get through two episodes of geriatric Flav blessing all manner of badly weaved-up strippers and would-be candy girls with his gold-plated clocks. But real talk, you watched it, and probably A Real Chance at Love, too. Maybe it's that when it comes to escapist fare like this, network television's counterprogramming has been so slow to recognize that black men (with enough encouragement) will spend a few dollars on Roses. Shows like The Bachelor have yet to incorporate color blind casting, and as far as I've heard, the token black girls are usually filtered out within the first round.

But a funny thing happened while watching Ray's iteration of VH1's wildly successful "Of Love" series. The "Sexy Ladies" singer was not only making for good, guilty-pleasure television, but the 28-year-old was also proving to be leading man material. (How often did you cringe when Public Enemy's hypeman got within even spitting distance of one of those chicks?) Unlike brothers Real and Chance, Brandy Norwood's cute baby brother is at least talented, and didn't give the impression that he might actually prefer his girl with a little more testosterone (ahem). That he/producers didn't hide the female influences in his life, from sis to right-hand-gal cousin Lil B, was equally impressive.

Moreover, Ray's boy-next-door quality quieted a lot of the sex tape noise that made him questionable initially. In fact, planting the idea that the impetus for the show was one of transformation was key: Would Ray shed his "shower" habit and take up Scrabble? Would he sip Chardonnay or a different kind of Cocktail? Part of what makes these shows work is a certain accessibility and an aspirational thing (guys want to be him; girls want to be with him). See you at the Reunion Show; bring the Champagne.

Is This Love?

An ongoing fantasy of mine is to pack a small red Samsonite bag with my summer wares, a pair or two of YSL espadrilles, a few Hermes scarves, and relocate for 6 months each year from the Rotten Apple to Kingston, Jamaica. I'd marry a Rasta, do local reporting, and feast on seasonal fruits. The grind and a generally faltering economic outlook has a tendency to turn this ganja-pipe dream from blurry to sharp, but other things do, too. Like when I recently found myself hip to waist with a tall, caramel-skinned Dread, his locs grazing his back while Mavado's "So Special" plays.

But always, hearing Robert Nesta Marley's kinky reggae gets me reaching for the Jamaica Daily Gleaner. One of my favorite documentaries about Bob is 2001's Rebel Music, in which we're introduced to the man beyond the music, partly via a series of on-air media interviews he participated in. He talks Rastafarian culture, politics, Jah, music, and of course, women. Bob's insatiable appetite for the gals is well-documented, from beauty pageant queens to Jamaican socialites.

In the aforementioned docu, viewers meet Esther Anderson (above), a publicist hired by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell to trail Marley and the Wailers in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Anderson was 29 when she met the younger Bob, who was about two years her junior but had already swelled his family with wife Rita. Anderson confesses that she fell hard for her charge, and business often turned to pleasure. The footage filmed by Lee Jaffe and seen here was taken of the pair during one of many mountain getaways they took during their "courtship." It pretty much encapsulates my JA ideal.

Anderson would go on to an acting career, including an Oscar-nominated turn in Sidney Poitier's A Warm December (1972), and a relationship with Hollywood icon Marlon Brando. Bob would go on to other beauties, but you can't miss the chemistry in that shot.

Rick Ross's Cocaine Dreams

Sure, the overwhelming evidence points to an incongruous pre-rap career in his local Department of Corrections. And maybe he wouldn't know a gram of cocaine from a teaspoon of Johnson's baby powder, but what Rick wrought, seems not even Curtis could put asunder. It's Deeper than Rap. Um, actually, with Ross it's just about rap. The detailed drug trade escapades - as slick and glossy as a badge - are more than likely fiction. But Ross is a skilled storyteller. A verse off his Avery Storm-backed "Rich off Cocaine" includes this verse:

Vacation to Haiti
It nearly broke my heart
Seein' kids starve I thought about my Audemars
Sellin dope ain't right
I put it on my life
Chickens put me in position to donate the rice

For an island with a storied history but a ransacked recent past, hearing it discussed on record with even a semblance of humanity, if only to evoke the gut-wrenching poverty, gives some solace.

Cassie's Been a Bad, Bad Girl

So pop&B starlet Cassie recently took clippers to her tresses, leaving a patch of exposed scalp above one ear. Reportedly, as she explained on her Twitter feed, she was looking to entrench her "Rock Star" status and try out her nascent I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude. Well, this gave me pause because I can think of few other singers who embody rock star status less than the lightweight songbird. For starters, being an "official" jumpoff to your label's chief executive officer is not a good look, nor is joining in on what I imagine was a session with The Clutch, assembled for a writer's circle, and presumably lamenting how you're tired/ tired/ tired of being his unofficial girl. Moreover, while Cassie's a gorgeous girl with a few hits behind her, she has hardly built what I can even generously refer to as a catalog. A few radio-ready hits, Ryan Leslie bangers, but nothing sturdy enough for a fan to structure a playlist around. In short, being signed to Bad Boy doesn't make you a Bad Girl, regardless of how much strappy leather Louis Vuitton and Balmain you loop around your ankles.

Drake's Progress

On his track "The Lounge," upstart Asher Roth asks, "What's a rapper look like?" The Toronto-born MC nee Aubrey Graham, bka Drake, went from a wheelchair-bound highschooler caught up in a Columbine-style shooting on The N's "Degrassi: The Next Generation" to a rap boy wonder surfing the crest of a wave of mixtape success, that positively crashed with his acclaimed So Far Gone. So what does a rapper look like these days, and if he can be a former child actor, what separates him from, say, Will Smith's "Yo homes, to Bel Air!" antics? For one thing, an air-tight affiliation with Lil Wayne and his Young Money Entertainment underscores that his rap credentials have been checked and scanned at the door. But the wavy-coiffed 22-year-old also more than earns his "Heartbreak" Drake moniker. Download "Best I Ever Had" or check Drake's melodic stylings on "Brand New" and try to remember when the Fresh Prince ever set your grade-school heart aflutter.

We All Scream for Liya

You know when two things that are seemingly perfect on their own are joined and produce something even better? Like when Jay-Z and R. Kelly came together in the booth (before it fell apart on tour)? Or when Stella McCartney designed that line for H&M? Or when Nestle decided to take vanilla ice cream cones and dip them in a vat of the crunchy chocolate bars to make drumsticks? Well, my favorite model, Liya Kebede, signed an exclusive deal with my favorite catalog, J. Crew (not to be confused with my favorite store), to be the face of its April 2009 issue. It landed in my mailbox just in time for my special day.