Sunday, October 25, 2015

music for lawn bowling...

this week's across 110th street with special guest, xavier meade. 

great music for lawn bowling.



love and health to all...

Saturday, October 17, 2015

it wasn't until...

...high school that i first heard about the world wide web.  The second or third year of high school, we had to take a computer course and we're given email address that were a mile long.  We also had to patch together some sort of website.  I still don't remember the photos I put up online, but it was a random combination of navigating code and in the end I had a ghastly bright color background and some random photos, maybe of me playing baseball.

We never really used that email address during high school.  I mean, it was still early daze of the internet.

In college, doing my bachelor's degree, we slowly began to use the internet, though the extant of our use, well, i just don't remember.  I recall ordering CDs from a website called CDNow, which I think merged with a larger company and also faintly remember ordering Cds from a hip hop website sandbox automatic.  I emailed home and emailed friends, but also religiously checked my physical mailbox during the humidity of minnesota late may and early june months and then trudging with snow on my boots in the wintertime.

There is nothing better than getting mail, the physical kind.  Email is cool, but not that cool.

Towards the end of the year, 2000, I went to Rajasthan for a 3 1/2 month study abroad programme in India.  I remember for the month in Jaipur, a dude named Chuck (who I think might be a professor at Stanford these days) would go to the local cyber cafe after Hindi class in the early afternoon and he would spend hours uploading photographs to his personal website.  He was pysched about it and shared the address and I remember telling my pops that he could go online and see photos from that day in India in Manhattan!  It blew my mind but I always thought and wondered, how could Chuck spend so many hours on a computer doing that!  Back then it took ages to upload photos and get them on a website.

Of course, these days, I spend way too much time on a computer and reckon that one of these days I'll have an internal revolt and just rid myself of the internet as much as I can as the years flow on and on and on...

Monday in New Zealand (Sunday in the United States of America) I'm officially going to get my doctorate.  An long struggle of a journey to research, write and stay sane.  My degree is from the above, The University of Waikato, an interesting little university on the North Island of New Zealand.  I was grateful, over the journey of my studies, far and wide, to have a couple great advisors and without their incredible encouragement and support, it would have considerably more difficult.

I don't know if I could have completed this degree in a big city.  There is something about writing by the sea, where it's quiet and distractions are minimal.  A place where the air is fresh, the seawater cool, cold and alive and the sun strong at the height of the day.

So, today, a little bit early this week, I leave you with Across 110th Street, the last where I'm just a DJ and not a Dr. Thinking of the doctorate always brings me back to Storyboard P - the Professoar. 

Alas, from the Bow Street studios in Whaingaroa through the intranets to your home, to your phone, to your speakers, beats, ritmos & stoops...



love and health to all...

Sunday, October 11, 2015

views from different views...

one of the lovely things about it being october in the small town of raglan, new zealand is that the supermarket stays open until 9pm.  i don't recall what time it would close the rest of the year, maybe 7pm or so.  what that means on a sunday evening is that before i head into the raglan radio studio to broadcast across 110th street, sometimes i'll stop by and have a look at the beer selection.

i was perusing this evening, around 7:45pm and the manager came up to me and says, "you want a recommendation?"  sure, i replied.  well, he tells me, this beer from russia is one of my favorites.  it's a strong one, he says grabbing the bottle. "7.2% and only 3 bucks," as he turns to me with a smile.

i have a look at the label. the beer is actually from the ukraine. definitely not a russian beer, i think to myself, at least not these days, or come to think of it, i ponder, who knows who is exporting ukrainian beer to new zealand. could be the russians in fact. borders over there are on some crazy tip these days.  not really a problem that new zealand really needs to worry about, shifting borders that is, unless, we're talking about global warming...

i passed on the ukrainian brew, though i'll have to try it one of these days and settled on an irish cider.

this evening i had a great time broadcasting across 110th street.  yesterday, spent a couple hours digging in the crates of the future.  new music i've been listening to over this last year, all types of good ish.  neo soul vocalists outta the u.k., some well known, some new to me, electro soul outfits, remixes of old funk that gets funkier with the times, plus all types of goodness that has come my way months back and in the last 24 hours too.

this photo, by the way, is almost the exact same angle as last week's image, but from a little lower of an elevation. reminded me there there was a time when i was at carleton, that i thought about majoring in the aesthetic beauty of clouds. not sure why i didn't try and pitch that? though not sure it would have been approved...

this week's across 110th street, ici:


love & health to all...

Sunday, October 04, 2015

Ageless...

For months, perhaps even for a few years, this blog has gone by the wayside.  Put on the back burner and forgotten.  'Oh shit,' you might say at a dinner party when the meal is almost finished being eaten, 'there were brussels sprouts in the oven! Forgot about 'em!'

It happens.

I'm not completely sure why this blog went by the wayside, though I certainly hope that with the publication of this post, it's a new dawn (though the photo is dusk).  It'd be nice to get back to this blog.  Not in regards to who peeps it, who reads it, if anyone, but just to use this space as a way to share thoughts and music and meditations and journeys and celebrations.

I'm back in Whaingaroa for awhile.  Here for a touch of work I'm needing to get done at Waikato.  It's cool this spring, the wind is blowin' hard and the rains come in and out, all day and through the night, Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud...

Here's this week's Across 110th Street.  It's been a minute, but feels great to get back in the Raglan Radio studio and play music for the masses! 8 weeks especial edition coming up these next couple months, surprise guests and folks coming through to share their favorite new jammies...



love & health to all...