The Night of Diplo

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Last night I went to Webster Hall to see Diplo perform. Never heard his music before that night, but always saw his name around. I met a couple of interesting people and had a ball.


To Jacob and Mike,

Jacob, Mike What's up? How was the rest of the night. The concert was fucking dope! I really didn't expect for Diplo to be that insane. The energy was amazing, I felt like I was back in London at Fabric. Makes sense though considering Diplo got his start at that very club.

What can I say, I'm happy I decided to role with you and Mike. To be honest it came as a bit of a shock to me that you two were friends, seemed like best friends actually. That was the first time I found myself hanging out with an openly gay man. It was awkward at times but I try to be kind and respectful to everyone. When you went to get us drinks you left Mike and I alone. I tried to talk to the guy just like I would talk to anyone else but we really couldn't connect. He asked me, "If you were stranded on an Island and could only take two albums, what albums would they be?" I said anything by The Velvet Underground or Jimi Hendrix and he laughed and said he would take anything from "Broken Social Scene", that pretty much sums up our dynamic.



I was completely in the zone at the concert. There were moments when I felt like I was the only person in the club, just dancing and feeling the music on my own. Then I would get thrown into this mass of energy generated by the insane crowd. I constantly found myself drifting to the left with out my knowing. I saw this chick dancing on the stage that reminded me of this girl that works at Def Jam. Coincidentally they both happened to be wearing orange pants from American Apparel so I thought it was her. I approached the stage with the intent of talking to her but when I got closer I realized it wasn't her, would have been cool if it was.

How about the girls at the show, all so gorgeous. I met some chick from Denmark, of course it was her "last night in America". Why is it always someones last night when you meet them. Why can't it be the first night, so you can hit it off and hang out every night after the first.

Thanks for letting me role with you guys though, I'm not sure the night would have been the same if I didn't.

I got your number so I'll hit you up sometime soon.

Dear Alex

Alex and Lexis would make a good couple right? Diplo was fucking ILL! He really amazed me. Did you and your friend dance the night away?

You kind of reminded me of that girl in Dazed and Confused the quite one that the chick puts under her wing.

Dear Cute Brunette on Metro North

Hey I wonder what happened to that couple that we were sitting next to. When they got off at Stamford I saw the chick take a few swings at the guy, I wonder what he said? What a dumb ass.

I'm sorry I lied about my age. I would like to think I'm more mature than the average 18 year old.

It's kind of crazy that you went to Lauralton and Suffolk. Because I went to Fairfield Prep and almost went to Suffolk.

I hope I see you on the train again.

To be continued this Thursday,

pop/ular/GURU

Sent Via Blackberry by AT&T

The night of Black Mountain (9/23 Bowery Ballroom)

Read more! I went to a concert, the Black Mountain show @ the Bowery Ballroom, on September 23, 2008.

September 23, 2008
To Chuck, Don and James?

I had a great time chilling in the park, drinking a 40 and listening to that homeless guy talk about how he was a graffiti artist. I checked out his website, artorcrime.com? Turns out, it doesn’t exist! Great concept for a website though. What a depressing sight, I wanted to give that guy the benefit of the doubt, I wanted him to actually be all that he claimed. I wonder if he had any skills what so ever when it came to graffiti?

That concert was amazing man! They started off slow and progressively built the night up. I wish they didn’t rush through their set though, someone else commented on how they actually played some of their songs faster than they were on the album. Only other complaint is they didn’t play “stay free”, I love that song, I’ve seen other set lists from shows and they never seem to play that one. I think it might have to do with copyright politics, it was featured on the soundtrack to Spider Man 3, so they might not have the rights to the song.

You guys were a cool group of guys, thanks for letting me hang out with you all. It’s not every day you meet a few people and spend an entire night with them.

I gave chuck my number but he never called me. Did you guys ever have that party you were talking about.

We still gotta see “The Wall of Fame” LMAO.

To mes,

Hey man, I checked out your website but couldn’t find anything. It was artorcrime.com right? You had such a great idea wish it actually came to life. I doubt it, but if you ever see this and want to start that site, I’ll buy you the domain and set you up! Are you actually a graffiti artist or were you just making all that stuff about the parties and “The Wall of Fame” up? You seemed like a real down to earth guy, had a good head on your shoulders. Addiction is a bitch isn’t it? I don’t mean to judge you but you even said it yourself, several times/

Thanks for solving the American Spirit filter mystery. A lot of people think they burn longer because the company packs them “harder” but I think that’s bullshit. Your reasoning made much more sense. I’ll always give out cigarette free of charge for that very reason, it usually sparks up great conversation (pun intended).

I agree with you whole heartedly about the direction of style and influence for the youth. Skinny jeans and designer duds are making a come back, it’s 1988 all over again. Like I said, I work at a hip hop label and all the jeans seem to be getting tighter and tighter. I still stand out like a faggot in a bathroom but I wouldn’t like it any other way.

Good luck with your life man. Next time I’m at the Ballroom, I’ll stop by the park, just to see if you’re there.

To that tall light skinned African American girl inside show,

I’m sorry I acted like such an idiot at the show. I was the guy that commented about how tall you were and how I thought you had a British accent, even though you clearly didn’t. I felt real small that night, you had a good two inches on me. The show was rad right? You seemed like you enjoyed yourself. What was going on with your friend though? He kept saying loud and obnoxious shit, then he left. Did he go outside to throw up or something?
I never saw you after the show. To be honest I never really even saw your face. You looked like a beautiful girl though, looked like you could be a model.
I think I might have actually seen you the other day though, right outside of the ESPN zone in Times Square. You were talking on the phone and I stopped to stare at you for a minute while the light changed. I’m pretty sure it was you. Not sure how many other good looking, skinny African American girls with big hair there are in this city. By the time I turned the corner and headed uptown I realized it was you, so I turned around and tried to catch up to you, but you were already headed downtown. Missed connection? I even went so far as to post an ad in craigslist. You know that “missed connection” section of the site. No replies though.

We shall meet again.

To that cute short haired brunette outside of Bowery Ballroom,

Wow! You were probably one of the cutest girls I’ve ever laid my eyes on. You had short brown hair, not real short but like shoulder length. You were wearing dark grey leggings and a sweater. You were standing outside by yourself for about an hour, I didn’t say anything to you because I suspected you were waiting for your boyfriend. You smoked camel light cigarettes, I smoked American Spirits. I think my predictions might have been correct because I saw you hug this guy for about 20 seconds and you didn’t leave his side until I disappeared with my hipster friends. Call me prejudice but the guy looked gay, from a distance I got the feeling that you were using him because he kept talking to the bouncers and I think I over heard him say he was “friends with the band”. I caught you looking at me with your circle of friends, almost like you wanted to invite me to join your pack, shoulda asked.

I hope I see you all again,

The Pop/ular/GURU
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Chris From Dubai

Read more! I went to London, England with my brother for a week in August. One night we went to the infamous nightclub known as Fabric.

August 15, 2008
To Chris from Dubai,

Tonight I went to my first rave. I didn't realize I was @ a rave until after I left the club. I was @ Fabric, one of the most notorious night clubs in London. Weekends are different in London. Everyone works their asses off during the week so no one goes out during the week nights, but come Friday, everyone goes out late and stays out even later. Fabric didn’t even open it’s doors until 10pm and people didn’t start to show up until closer to midnight. All through the night though, dozens upon dozens of ravers entered the club, there was a constant influx of people.

The club is like a maze. Multiple levels and bars with a constant drone of thump, thump, thump, pause, thump, thump, thump. It’s impossible to escape the noise, not that you would ever want to. To give you an idea of how the club is layed out-you enter from the upper level. It feels almost like the club is tucked into some sort of cave. The stairwell that leads to the main dancefloor, called room 1 I believe, wraps around the wall as you enter into this dimly lit knook of a bar. Machines fill the enter club with synthetic smoke adding to the haze of the establishment. You can look over the main dance floor from the main bar, like god watching over his people, you feel the energy of the life underneath you.

Morals and emotion are nonexistent @ a rave. The theory behind the noise is that you’re having a good time, he's having a good time, were all having a good time. @ a rave, people don't communicate with words, they communicate with their bodies. There's no asking a girl if she wants to dance or offering to buy someone a drink @ the bar. Bodies gravitate towards one another. Body language, that's the official language of raves. I was in the middle of the dance floor, my domain for the night when a gorgeous young Italian girl went from boy to boy begging for a cigarette. You weren’t suppose to smoke on the dance floor, but after I gave this chick a cigarette, she proceeded to light up right on the dance floor, she couldn’t give two shits about what security had to say or who she was bothering with the fumes from her Winston light. I was mesmerized by the way she danced, held her cigarette in her mouth and managed to flirt with any guy that had the courage to do the same.

All morals are left @ the door when @ a rave. Beer bottles are left on the floor, body odor almost smells pleasant, men brush up against men in the most heterosexual way, all genders share the same bathrooms, condoms are on sale for 2 pounds, patrons go from person to person asking if they have pills and everyone smokes cigarettes. Atleast five people asked me for Ecstasy pills. I came to the conclusion that all the black residents of the club probably sold Ecstasy. A rave is the only kind of party of club where you’ll see people drinking bottles of water. After dancing, drinking and doing drugs for a few hours, your body naturally deserves some H2O.

I found it impossible to communicate verbally with anyone. Words just sounded like gibberish to me. The only words I could really pick up on were slang; a zoo is a joint, beanies are ecstasy pills, etc.

I met an interesting person outside on the smokers patio. His name was Chris and he moved from Dubai about 9 months ago. He had a real thick English accent and talked rhythmically. He was throwing all sorts of slang at me, somehow we got on the topic of drugs. Whenever I hear of Dubai, I automatically think about some of the horror stories I’ve heard about people getting busted for drugs or having sex on the beach, Dubai seems like a wonderful country, but they’re completely backwards when it comes to sex and drugs…do your research before you book the flight.

At around 4am my brother and I got tired and decided to head back to our rooms. It took us like an hour to get home though because the transportation system in London is fucked up. The “tube” (train) stops running after 12am, just about the time when some people are going out, and doesn’t start running until 5am. Being that cabs in London are so damn expensive, the only other ways to get home is to walk or take the night bus. Night buses are a pain in the ass. There’s some convoluted system involved with getting the right bus to take you home, a system that I didn’t even bother to learn. My brother, the navigator handled all transportation duties for the trip, thank god, because if it wasn’t for him I would have just stayed out all night.

I think people say that NYC is the city that never sleeps? From my experience, I’d say London is the city that never sleeps. The nightclub we were @ didn't close until 6am. Even on our way back home, the kabob eatery was filled with English lads still drinking beer and munching on these platters of food that looked disgusting but ironically tasty @ the same time. I wondered when the guys that worked at the Kabob places slept, they worked all day and on weekends, all night. When the hell did they socialize? Did they fucking socialize? I thought back to America, where everyone seems to complain about work, regardless of how much or how little they actually DO work.

As I walked back to my dorm room, an intoxicated figure offered to pay me for a cigarette. Pay me for a cigarette? Who was I to be compensated for a cigarette? I happily dug into my pockets and presented the man with a Marlboro light and lit his cigarette for him, “thanks mate”, people are so nice in London, as I walked to my room I saw him disappear behind a deserted pub, quite suspiciously.

So as I sit in my 10x10 dorm room @ Westminster college and the sun rises, the night clubs officially close, the shop openers prepare for another days work and 1000s of scenesters emerge from the depths of the nightclubs only to see daylight. In one big mass of adrenalin, they migrate to eateries, tube stops, bus stations and taxi cabs. Its Saturday morning, no one has a corporate office to go to, just another night in this cold city that never sleeps, a great night in this cold city that never sleeps.

To be continued hopefully.

Cheers mate,

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

My Friend From Afghanistan

Read more! Metra Night Club in London, England. I went outside for a smoke…

August 13, 2008
Unknown Friend from Afghanistan,

“Where are you from mate?” he said in slurred speech as he swayed from side to side, taking drags from his cigarette. “New York City” I replied proudly. I’m not actually from NYC, I’m from Connecticut, but considering people from The States don’t know shit about CT, I wouldn’t expect a foreigner from London to know shit about CT either.

“No…where are you from?” He kept repeating; I couldn’t answer the question. Where the hell was I from? I insisted that I was American, born and raised, same with my parents and grandparents and so on and so. Where did the lineage end? Well, my Mothers parent’s are actually from Haiti but I don’t identify myself as Haitian American or anything like that. I’ve never been to Haiti, don’t know shit about the country other than what I learned in French class. So what am I?

“Where are you from?” I asked to turn the question on him. “Afghanistan” he replied proudly. What? Now didn’t I just open up a can of worms. I remember reading somewhere that it was impolite to ask someone where they were from and I think it was for this specific reason. I can honestly say, I didn’t judge the man because he said he was from Afghanistan, not initially, I just felt bad for asking. Obviously if you tell someone you’re from Afghanistan, you’re welcoming an endless list of stereotypes and prejudice and if you ask someone that’s from Afghanistan where they’re from, you’re just an asshole.

This kid didn’t stop there. He went onto list all the people in his family that he lost, presumably from acts of violence. This many brothers, that many sister, uncles, aunts, grandparents, close to a dozen relatives he named.

I thought about my own life. The only person I’d lost was my grandfather, essentially from old age. I cried at my grandfathers funeral, we all did, but suddenly my grandfather being dead seemed insignificant. Atleast he lived a long life, I couldn’t even begin to imagine burying my brothers or sisters. It was hard to react to what he was saying, normally when someone says they lost a member of their family you reply by saying, “I’m sorry to hear that”. That cliché bullshit of a response didn’t seem appropriate in this situation, nothing did. I imagine I probably said something like, “wow”, or maybe nothing at all, but the guy wasn’t looking for anything from me, he was just fucked up.

“And I still love my country”

What!?!? I was mesmerized. His country had taken so much away from him, and yet, he had the balls to tell me he still loved his country.

That’s more than I could say about my country.

pop/ular/GURU