Books/Laura’s Song

Not much to write, not right now at least. Still have two more exams to go before I’m officially done here. Still have about a week left in Tokyo. You know, not having a computer at home anymore (I have to wait until I get back to the states to get my laptop up and running again) really leaves a girl time to do other things like read books. I used to be such an avid reader. I stayed in used book stores, had one of those member cards at Barnes & Noble, visited the local library in every city I lived. Reading is what made me who I am today. My leisure reading took a significant dive when I started law school, though. Who had time for historical fiction and critical essays when you had hundreds of pages of court opinions to pour through? Who even wanted to read when you had spare time? Not me. Reading was relegated to summer time on the subway or airplanes.

With the help of a nice used English book store in Ebisu I’ve been reading again. I finally caught up on that  Malcom Gladwell shit everyone was raving about, Blink and The Tipping Point. I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mohsin Hamid) which was quick and easy. Just finished In the Drink (Kate Christensen) and Bastard Out of Carolina (Dorothy Allison, also made into a movie) this week. I highly suggest Bastard if you’re into great storytelling and captivating characters. At first, you might not think you’d like a book about some poor white family in South Carolina but the dialogue is great and the relationships draw you in. I can’t say I was happy with the ending but I think it was done well. Next on the reading list is Disgrace (JM Coetzee) and High Fidelity (Nick Hornby). Sure, I’ve seen the movie High Fidelity a couple of times, but as we all know, the book is often way better. Besides, I was kind of inspired…

Speaking of High Fidelity, here’s Donwill of Tanya Morgan with the HIGHLY anticipated video for the cut “Laura’s Song” from the Don Cusack In High Fidelity project.

How fab was that?

Last Day/Girls Talk

I ain’t pass the Bar but I know a lil’ bit, enough that you won’t illegally search my shit. – Jay-Z

Friday, April 17th, 2009. The last day, the last class of law school. Let us exhale. Sure I have two weeks of exams to go but once I battle the beast called Int’l Dispute Resolution on Monday, the others (Comparative Immigration, Japanese Law, Int’l Human Rights) will be a cake walk. Then there’s a brief respite before suiting up in my doctor’s gown and crossing the stage to grab my J.D. Sometimes I think I might want to go to school again, but I really need a break. My brain and my spirit are weary from all of this law school yameanery. Don’t get me wrong, I really do enjoy the study of law in general. However, three years of statutes, cases, draconian exams and professional pressure is a lot, even for me!

A friend IM’d me to congratulate me on finishing up school. I was kind of nonchalant about it because, well, I don’t feel particularly excited. For reasons expressed before, I don’t really feel like I’m moving on to anything so great, at least not right now, not in the near near future. I’m mostly relived just to be done but not super pumped for the next chapter (especially because I have no idea what that really is). But then I got to thinking about one really positive thing… I’m finished.

I finished what I started. Not just back in 2006 when I started out as a first-year (1L). This harkens back to 2003 when I graduated from undergrad and was set to start at Tulane Law that fall. Through various decisions (some poor) and unforeseeable life circumstances, I ended up at another law school then left. I was never happy with the way that turned out, especially because I could have already been working as an attorney by the time I started school this time around! So I finally finished what I started out to complete six years ago and I guess it wasn’t so bad because I had some good life/work experiences in between.

Okay, okay. In other news, Che Grand put out a video for his jawn “Girls Talk” featuring DBM. I like listening to this while riding my bike dodging Japanese people who don’t know how to move out of the way (I digress). The vid is fun, Peep:

Oh Snap! One year!

With everything that’s been going on with me lately, I totally missed my blog’s first birthday! WHAT? On April 9, 2008, for no reason whatsoever, I figured I’d start a blog. I’d started blogs before but never finished. This one has gone longer than any other. Why? I don’t know. I’m glad I guess. I only do it because I like to hear/see myself talk and from the stats it looks like a lot of you like it too. Soon, when I get back to the States and get settled, I’m going to do a redesign of the place. Sort of like a birthday present.

It’s interesting to see how things have changed. I started this blog kind of with a joke in mind, being “bourgie” and all, which I explain a little bit in the About section. I started off with short entries about what I, “Bourgie” had been getting into (see Bourgie Goes to Dinner) and then peppered in things I cared about  like women’s issues and things I obsess about like reality tv. I basically cannot tell you what this blog is about since it’s all of those things still.

In honor of one year still blogging, here’s a random selection of posts from the past year:

Barack Better Be Bresident* 
When It Rains, it pours: A Car Story (v.1)
Sunny Delight, my ass.
Artichokes & Asparagus: Musings on the word “bourgie”
I’ll just date my bus pass then
Family (re)union
The Prototype: Clair Huxtable (revisited)
philly so crazy
Voulez-vous coucher avec une araignee?
Dominican Salons
I bleed blue: A Period Piece (pt 1)
Big Plastic Cups
Stop judging. Kthxbye.
MESSAGE!

Japan blog

Just a little housekeeping note.
I attempted to run two blogs, this one and one about my stay in Japan. However, the Japan blog started to fall off as I found less time to devote to it. I’m not going to be posting to it anymore, so I imported all of the posts from over there to Bourgie Adventures. Unfortunately, WordPress didn’t include any of the links/photos that I included in the posts which sucks. Anyway, just an FYI. If you’re interested in checking them out, do a search for “Japan” or you can still check out the original blog by clicking on the HK in the sidebar.

Let’s Dance

Somebody back in the States made reference to the Stanky Leg in conversation the other day and then quickly followed up with, “Oh, you probaly don’t know what I’m talking about since you been outta the country.” Well first of all, there’s this thing called the internet. I’m so plugged in how could I NOT know about that song/dance? Secondly, Japanese people know ALL of the dances. ALL of them. I was so shocked. Not shocked that they can dance or that they like hip-hop music… everyone knows that. I just didn’t expect them to be so up on all of the southern-type dances. I’ve learned some things out here, let me tell you.

It got me to thinking though, about how much junk people talk about the dances that are out today. Stanky leg, Halle Berry, Jockin’, leanin’ and rockin’, booty do, Rick James, etc.  Folks say they’re ignorant and stupid. They embarrass Black people. The youth have lost their mind. It’s a minstrel show. Cooning. The South is killing hip-hop.

Negro, please. Memory lane must be a really short street. I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I was one of those kids who was into dance. In fact, I once believed I would grow up to become a professional dancer/choreographer. I would watch the Flyy girls on In Living Color then go to my friend’s cri and recreate the moves. I had a dance group in middle and high school and we’d perform during halftime at summer league basketball games or open up for acts blowing through town. What I remember from the early days of all that dancing is that people really DANCED. The moves back then were just as animated, if not more so, than what kids are doing today.

Remember seeing Kid N Play get down? Big Lez? Heavy D and the Boys? Diddy when he was Puffy the backup dancer? The Flyy Girls? The people who got on stage at the end of Def Comedy Jam? Remember doing the Roger Rabbit? The Bobby Brown? The Wop? The Cabbage Patch? Remember jumping up and down, getting on the ground, thrusting your pelvis in the air a la Salt N Pepa? Of course you do. If you remember all of that, you know it was nearly impossible to DANCE back then without breaking out a fucking sweat. Folks were all over the place! Tell me, how is that sooooo different from what folks do today?

I think we got thrown off because in the 90s we went through a period where folks didn’t dance no mo’. Party dancing gave way to mean mugging and holding up the wall. Alternatively, you would just grind your ass around and simulate sex on the dancefloor. You couldn’t really bust a move to gangsta rap and people who made music just for dancing and partying got relegated to the “wack” or “sellout” side of the hip hop spectrum.

Lil’ Boosie ain’t the epitome of hip hop by any means, folks. But I’m gonna be wiping down my shoulders, chest, pants and shoes when Wipe Me Down comes on. Why? Because I like to dance, I like to party and I remember when stuff like that wasn’t uncommon at all.

What do you think? Is dance so different now than it was before? Or are we just getting old and sounding more  like our parents every day?

Oh… and I’m not cosigning the naming of dances after what some may or may not do with their ejaculate and linens. Just skip over that.

That’s so gay!

I don’t understand some people’s fixation over what’s gay or not. Not necessarily WHO is gay, but what. What inspired me to write this was a trip last weekend to the Kanamara Matsuri, also known as the Festival of the Steel Phallus in Kawasaki Daishi, Japan. A brief summary of the festival is necessary, I think.

Kanamara Matsuri is a Shinto festival that has, over the years, grown into a spectacle combining the sacred with the silly. According to the Japanese magazine Metropolis, the festival dates back to the Edo period (1603-1867).

At that time, Kawasaki’s “ladies of the night” prayed not only that business would be brisk, but for protection from syphilis. Come cherry blossom time, they gathered baskets of bamboo shoots and other sprouting delicacies, carried the shrine’s phallic image in procession through the streets, and then sat down to a merry banquet on mats spread out on the courtyard of Kanamara Shrine… Today, the highlights of this saucy festival include transvestites parading through the town’s streets carrying a mikoshi (portable shrine) with a humongous pink phallus on top. And, if that’s not guaranteed to make you blush as deeply as the surrounding cherry blossoms, then the spectacle of grandmas and grandpas sucking on carnal candy and sweetmeat replicas of this stupendous phallus, is more than likely to.

It’s the last part of the description that spawned my annoyance. I traveled to the festival by myself just to take in this scene and, of course, snap some pics. I got there and ran into 3 guys from school so we chatted and kicked it a bit. What was at first a pleasant afternoon became incredibly annoying when all the guys could do was talk about how GAY everything was.

Sure, you don’t see things like that everyday. Grown men don’t just walk around with dildos strapped to their heads. Senior citizens don’t go around brandishing dick-shaped dough and young men and women don’t stand on line for 30 minutes to get their hands on yellow and pink penis pops. Wait, take that back.

See: dildo head (center) and penis pop (lower rt corner)

You don’t see things like that everyday when you’re from SC, FL and Jamaica which is where those 3 guys hailed from.

They pointed at one person and another, talking about how the guys were sucking on the lollipops. One of my schoolmates wanted to get something to eat and felt some kind of way about buying a hot dog because, well, we were at a penis festival. One of them wanted a lollipop, but was adamant that it would be gay of him to do so.

Now, I’ve referred to things as gay or ghey before, don’t get me wrong. I’m not on some holier than thou kick. I just don’t get obsessed with trying to point out what’s gay or not. I wonder, does suckin a lollipop shaped like a vagina make me a lesbian? Will I be consumed with a desire to go out and meet a woman, tear off her clothes and lick her box? No.

It was just annoying. I find men who are so fixated on what’s gay or not to be terribly unattractive.  Dude even told me that sucking on a lollipop is gay, period. No matter how the pop is shaped. To make himself clear, he told me that if given a blowpop, he’d bite it as soon as he put it in his mouth. I said, well damn, I guess you should just stick to gum and not lollipops then. It was clear to me that my schoolmates were just uncomfortable being in a setting where men were dressed as women and brazenly participating in the festivities. I’m pretty sure that many of the people who were there were in fact straight, heterosexual people but it was a party, ya know?

Grandmas go hard.

I always think back to a debate that went on in my boyfriend’s dorm room freshman year of college. He and his buddies were arguing over whether, if one possessed the ability to fellate himself (if you know what I mean) and did so, did that make him gay or was he simply  masturbating? The crux of the debate is whether to focus on having a penis in your mouth (which they said, was gay all the time) or the self-pleasure (which is what masturbation is all about). To this day, I don’t believe they’ve ever settled it. I bring that up because it’s a silly argument and if you knew those guys it would be really funny to you. But I also mention it to highlight the stupidity of such discussions. Like, really dude… maybe you’re gay because you’re spending so much time trying to classify what is and is not gay. Maybe my 3 schoolbuds are gay because they basically spent their afternoon criticizing how other men sucked a lollipop. Doesn’t matter to me though, since they all sound like idiots, regardless of their orientation.

FYI, the shrine in Kawasaki Daishi is real and a place of Shinto prayer and ceremony. The festival helps to celebrate the shrine and to raise money for HIV/AIDS awareness. Can’t be mad at that.

I Know You See It

And no, I’m not talking about D Green’s pit hair. I’m talking about The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (my alma mater and one of the greatest universities around) taking the 2009 NCAA National Championship.

I swear, I don’t even  know why MSU showed up. They got creamed by us in December and they got embarrassed in their own backyard in Detroit. Shame. Like my boy Wale says, “it’s lopsided like a Double-A college tryna undertake a D-1 scholar, they need work.” Nah, good job to the Spartans for making it to the big dance. I don’t know what happened to UConn. That would have been a great final and I could have rubbed it in so many people’s faces!

Good job Carolina, not that I’m surprised.

Immature

Am I the only one who still listens to Immature? Is it odd that I have several Immature jams on my ipizzle? Well if that’s wrong, then I don’t wanna be right!

I do think it’s funny though, in retrospect, that these lil boys were singing their hearts out in the sand. Oh and I know Batman/Marcus and Romeo, but um, who was that third kid again? Wonder what he’s doing in life.

Who authorized a straight up permed-bob for that lil boy though? I can’t clap to that.

Help some law students!

Although I will be graduating from law school next month, I will not be taking the Bar exam. Nope, I won’t be participating in what most consider the necessary culmination of a legal education. It’s not because I don’t want to be a lawyer. It’s because I cannot afford it. We’re not talking registration fees like you saw with the SAT or even the LSAT. We’re talking Bar application, Bar review course, expenses associated with gathering information and background checks for your character & fitness application, and living expenses while you study for the exam. Ouch. If you read this blog, you know this isn’t the first time I’ve shared my frustration about the situation.

Usually, folks take out loans to finance this additional, but necessary portion of law school. However, with the financial crisis we’re in right now, even Bar Loans aren’t being offered like they used to. What’s a graduating law student to do? The Alliance for Legal Education has a smashing idea:

The Alliance for Legal Education is a coalition of law schools and other organizations in the legal community working to ensure that students who have invested in a legal education have the funding they need to prepare for the bar exam. The Alliance has proposed a solution: allow costs associated with preparing for the bar to be included in the cost of attendance, which would, in turn, make these costs eligible for federal student loans.

To effect this policy change, and to do so in time to help this year’s graduating law students, it is critical to contact legislators now to urge their support of this initiative. The Alliance has established a website at http://capwiz.com/allianceforlegaleducation where you can learn more about this initiative and use the online facility to contact your legislators about this issue.

You do not have to be a law student to encourage legislators to act. You just have to think it’s ridiculous that a person should have to take out private loans, charge up their credit cards or, do like I will and postpone the exam in order to work and save money. The cost of the Bar should be figured into the cost of attendance for law school, what makes more sense than that?

The online form is really easy and takes less than 2 minutes to fill in. Thanks a bunch!

Thailand Adventures, Pt. III

continued from part II…

March 19, Krabi: We landed in Krabi and got in yet

On the way to Railay!

another taxi-van to the shore. See, we were staying on west Railay beach and the only way you can get to it is via boat. Railay isn’t an island, it’s more like a peninsula but I think it takes too long to get to overland or maybe it’s just not navigable. The terrain is rather mountainous, hence the area is popular for the rock climbing offered. So we get on a long boat and enjoy a nice ride over to Railay. It’s worth mentioning that on the whole trip we only met a few Americans other than ourselves and the other folks from school who were traveling Thailand. Most of the non-Thai folks were from Germany, Austrailia, the UK and France. We did meet this one American dude who had quit his job and was backpacking southeast Asia, a popular thing to do I guess. We saw him in Samui and he was headed to Railay for rockclimbing. His name was Matt and he shared a cab and the longboat with us.

Anyway we first got to Railay on the east side which, according to the

Our hotel pool & Railay West beach

guidebooks and our own eyes, isn’t as pretty as the west side. Luckily, you can walk from one to the other with no problem. We arrived on the west side at a really nice resort, Railay Bay. Once again, soon after arriving we headed out to the beach, setting up chairs near the pool facing the horizon. If you ever go to Thailand, make it your business to visit Railay West. From there you have access to Krabi, a nice little beachside town and two cool beaches.

We spent the remainder of our trip pretty much exploring the Krabi-Railay area. Three of us spent a morning at Ya’s Cooking School, where a lovely Thai woman named Ya (duh) taught us how to cook DELISH Thai cuisine. Curries, soups, salads, pad thai, stir fry, yumm!