OLD SCHOOL FRIDAY IS POST BELOW

by vivrant thang on a plethora of…stuff

Plethora is one of my favorite words for some strange reason. Named the post that because I’ll just be talking about an abundance of random ish – playing a bit of catch up. It’s just been that kind of week.

Plethora is also the name of Swedish singer Kissey Asplund’s album which I had on my latest list of CDs I need in my life like yesterday. I saw her perform last weekend at BloomBars, a new community art space in DC. That’s one thing I love about living in this area – lots of random spaces and places where passionate people are creating. Check out some of the music-related pieces. I’ll have to talk about my passion for art one day and post some of the artwork I have on my walls.

I captured Kissey’s entire performance. Here’s “Fuss N Fight.” More on the YouTube channel. If you’re a Kissey fan or even if you aren’t, let me know what you think in the comments.

This weekend will be jam packed with great music. Tonight, I’ll be attending the Anthony David/N’Dambi show. Always good to see Acey Ducey and this will be my first N’Dambi experience. Videos and review to come. For Saturday, I was fortunate to receive a pair of tix to see Lyfe Jennings and Keith Sweat. It’s great being a tastemaker I tell ya! Opening for them will be a new artist on the comeup, Yolanda Renee. I like her sound and will definitely keep my eyes and ears out for more. I’ll end the weekend spending all day Sunday at Rock The Bells. Now this should be interesting. I’m most excited to seeing ATCQ (hope they do Bonita Applebaum!), Rakim, De La Soul, and members of Wu Tang. I know they won’t come on until the end so I’ll just be out there maxin and relaxin with some wine and vittles.

Also on the music front, I’m really excited to be helping out with Can A Sista Rock A Mic 2008. You already know the answer – yes they can! Stay tuned for more info on that in the coming weeks. Some of the artists I’ve mentioned here just may be up there rocking the mic.

Met with my goal-setting partner this week and really feel good about some things I’m about to put in place to move closer to doing what I love…at least as a side hustle. I can’t see myself being able to give up my weekly paycheck and free top-notch health care any time soon. I just can’t let that stop me from remembering what I was put here to do – and actually doing it. A woman at my job just dropped dead in church at 34. No one is promised tomorrow.

I had been bemoaning my lack of true female friends and trying to think of ways to expand my circle. However, the more I think about it, I think I’m better off being happy with what I got. This hasn’t been my year with females and friendship. Ya’ll are some unstable creatures for real. Maybe I need more male friends. Not that those friendships don’t come with a whole different set of issues. Who knows Just thinking out loud.

Just finished watching the “Being A Black Man in America” show on CNN. What kind of fuckery was that? Truly made me wanna holler and throw up both my hands. All that negativity truly disturbed my spirit. Somehow even the positives in this show had an undercurrent of negativity. Thank God for Twitter and my Soror Yas’ discussion forum.I recorded the women’s segment but I don’t think I will watch. Interesting comments over at What About Our Daughters? Average Bro raises some great points about personal responsibility (stop giving your cookies to idiots -*round of applause*) and actually provides some solutions – something that is always absent from these bullshit “State of Black America” discussions. Comments are sure to be lively so check him out.

On a slightly related note, apparently in the women’s segment, they mentioned that always startling statistic that 80% of all new AIDS cases in DC are Black folks. Of course we have to consider that DC is a “chocolate city” after all so there’s several ways to look at that. However, it’s still unsettling. You know HIV/AIDS is an important issue for me. I should be starting volunteer work with some area organizations within the next month so I hope to get an inside look at what that stat really means. What I do know is that there are two people I know that have permanent STDs and don’t inform their partners. That’s a whole other post/rant though. Be careful folks.

So that I don’t end on a totally morbid note, I was called “stunning” for the first time in 31 years. That’s not how I would describe myself but I just said “thank you” – just as I should have. Made me smile.