Jazzmatazz

For the first time in years...I took a nap in the afternoon! Imagine that! I am not sure how I'll be able to sleep tonight:-) I've got work tomorrow...I know it's one of those rare mondays:-) The truth is I am only working 2 days this week, so I am not complaining about going in on a monday. Recession says I should go more often... but alas!

Went to see the new Bond movie...quite nice actually. Well it's pretty fast you feel like you have ADHD or something! I don't want to ruin it for those that haven't seen it yet, but then again if you haven't seen it, then you're probably not a true fan and I can tell you about it innit? bwah haha!

I am very fond of Jazz, and used to go to Twins Jazz http://www.twinsjazz.com/ and still thinkk it's the best Jazz place I know. They have open mic jazz night which is just fantastic! You get to hear unknown and up and coming artists just doing their thang and it's awesome!


Any way in my denial of most things D.C... I went to try and find a jazz place closer to me and ended up at Coco's butter http://www.cocosbuttercafe.com/ which is a jazz, wine and Chocolate cafe. All my favorite things! How delightful! It's located in Columbia and sort of looks shady from the outside because it's near a warehouse and one would tend to think you're lost as you approach the place for the first time. As you walk in you're greeted by pictures of jazz stars and instruments on the wall. Sweets displayed in the glass enclosures beckon endlessly for you to taste them. The room is small and inviting-- not bright. The down side is that you have to go to the bar to purchase everything. Last night they had a band called 'Nex lev'l' I thought they were great...the percussionist was totally entertaining! I didn't like the wines I had-- a South African rosé and a Pinot Grigio... The chocolates were...hhhhmmmmm. I didn't like the look of the cheesecake, so I didn't bother eating any. The hot chocolate was mediocre.


Talking about hot chocolate, winter is here and I HATE winter!!! It snowed the other day and I had to walk through the damned flurries!!! I think this is going to be a bloody long winter!

Also the recession as I figured is now affecting wine purchases. I have been to several wine stores and I can not seem to find agood bottle for less than $10 like I used to. It seems most wines under $15 are like 2007's and a lot of them are too young to be drank now any way which is screwed up!

LOL... the economist has the most ridiculous research done http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12630193&source=hptextfeature basically they are saying that those who wash with soap and water are morally corrupt. So I guess to maintain my moral integrity I will probably stop taking baths...lol.

Also, I will have not family this thanksgiving and Christmas. So If you think your life sucks... think of me and how I will be alone for Christmas...and know that someone else's life sucks worse than yours! I will be a freeloader... as usual... just haven't decided which houses will be raided. I may go to Texas again for Christmas if things play out right... though I have discovered that it's cheaper to go to Ohio... so I may visit my peeps there instead. Dunno yet. So many plans so little time:-)

Reciprocity

Thanks to you know who for you know what:-) Next time I want the VIP seats though dawg! LOL

I had a fantabulous weekend!

Virgin Music festival was totally awesome...they had Kanye West, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Foo fighters, She and him, Lil Wayne, Nine inch nails, Jack Johnson, Duffy, Stone Temple pilots, KT Tunstall.... the list goes on and on!

Kanye closed off the show...he was not late...and claimed he's never late, but dude had a whole preaching ceremony about how he hates the media (lights flashing!), and how great it is that the middle man is no longer getting rich off talented musicians because of technological advances...blah blah blah! Just shut up and sing like you were paid to goshdagit!

I think I am the only one in the world that understands the meaning of the word fatigue right now!

Also there were massive amounts of weed going around....and I was right in the middle and inadvertently inhaled the surrounding fumes. So then all of a sudden I was starving and couldn't figure out why because I had just eaten two hours before that.... then it hit me! I'm so fly no lie and you know this....!!!

I also drank a lot of strawberry margaritas even though a month ago I had vowed not to touch those suckers for a while....it was hot and that was the only frozen drink they were offering...so I took it:-) and enjoyed the hell out of it!

What if?

How many "what if?" questions are normal per day? Hmmm...just wondering.

So I had a fabulous weekend...till I decided to paint. Now take note I haven't held a paint brush in a very long time...so this was something very challenging. Don't panick.... I only painted my bathroom...and yes it lookd quite pathetic...but that's the beauty of owning stuff. You can make it suck as much as you want!!!! Right now...my bathroom totally sucks! I can not even show pictures. It was a great work out I must admit.
The good news though is that I redesigned my french doors in the living room...and I think I totally rock in that department! I gat skillz!

Oh I went to my concerts this weekend...and it was a blast! No pics at the moment (too lazy to upload), Fridays's concert strated very late...damned African time! I also got to hear someone called Loide-- her father is from Guinea Bissau mother from Mozambique...she was born in France and raised here...ahhh the sweet life of an African! She sho can saaaannng!!! They sort of boed her only because we were tired of waiting for Oliver Mtukudzi to come on. I loved the version of Lucky Dube's 'daddy remember me' that she did... but since it was an African show, I would have rather she sang in an African language than english. I think she would sound amazing if she did something like 'Malaika'.

You know my reggae brothers never fail to entertain! Oh and guess what? I just heard a new reggae song entitled "Barak Obama"...LOL... I was sooo tickled!

Friday njikata!!!

ala mwandi! I can not explain how much I love fridays!!!

I am sooooo happy right now just thinking that tomorrow will be FRIDAYYYYY!!!

aaahhhh! I can not wait! I am working early in the morning because I aint rich enuff to quit my day job... then I have a few plans... A, B & C.

A and C are top secret operations... B?...it's open for discussion! Tomorrow night, or Sunday, I may go to the Symphony Orchestra... they are playing Rachmaninoff this weekend and tickets are cheap...so I might as well! I like listening to Rachmaninoff because 1) his name is funny 2) I think I can pick up the turmoil of his life in his work:-) 3) dude died 5 months after becoming an American citizen!
Saturday, for plan B- I will be out shopping (read: spending money that I don't have) with the girls at an outlet mall:-)

OMG!!! The funniest thing just happened! When C$ and I went to Adams Morgan, we were at a Bar that is usually frequented by 'public enemy #1' also known as kapoli (bush pig), and we kept thinking...OMG any minute now...he's like going to walk through that door, and it will be on and poppin! Needless to say, he didn't show... but today I was looking at another friends pictures...and there was Kapoli at the same place we were-just a different day of course...but it was hilarious!!!!
***************************
perceptions during childhood:- When I was a kid, I used to think that everyone with the last name Tembo (and others for that matter) was a gardener or servant of some kind--and was almost always poor. So one day, my daddy's little sister came home and announced she was getting married to a Mr. Tembo...and everyone was excited except me! I was dismayed that they would be letting her marry a 'Tembo', and that I was to be on the wedding line up! I was thinking to myself...OMG! Princess M in a wedding party probably in Garden or Bauleni compound??? Hell no! Over my dead body! The dust in the compound would mess up my pretty pink dress with white flowers!!! Come to find out the dude had more money than my father, mother sister brother and me combined!
That's when I learnt that names didn't necessarily define poverty! Like how dumb was I??? I don't even know how old I was at the time. I just know that I was a dancing diva and was on so many wedding line ups...even of people I didn't know, and i wasn't about to mess up my roll nuh meen?
*********************************************
Okay, I am going to bed now so I can wake up and it can be Friday:-)

Franco- Le grand maitre! and Zed music.

Born Francoise Luambo Makiadi in DRC 1938 was playing guitar by age 7, and became one of the biggest names in African Music by the early 1960's. Dude has such an interesting history, not only was a great entrepreneur (he owned property and businesses in Belgium, France and the DRC), he united a majority of Africa through his music.
I can remember going to parties and hearing his music when I was younger. If you went to a party at that time and didn't hear a Franco song...then the party probably sucked:-)
The down side to his popularity was that he became close alies with Mobubtu Seseseko and his rich friends, and so he lost touch with sending out great political messages. The other tragedy also was that it is suspected that he died from complications of HIV/AIDS at age 51 in 1989. The rumors about his condition began to heavily circulate after his last song 'Attention na SIDA'(Beware of AIDS), and the fact that he went from a hefty 300 pounds to probably 160 pounds-ish.



You might wonder why I am writting about him today, well I bought one of his 'best of' CD collections, and I have had much attention from my Zambia and Congolese circles. They would all like me to boot-leg it for them. The funny thing is, I love the song 'Mario' (in the video above- press red x if it doesn't show) and for ages I thought it was like a semi-romantic song seeing as my Lingala starts and stops at the word 'bolingo' (love). I was recently informed that the song is actually about a sugar mummy and her young boyfriend. She buys him everything, and pays for most things that his family needs and one day he hits her... and she explains to him that it is wrong to hit her because she uses skin bleaching creams and she is now too fair skinned to be hit as it leaves a lot of bruising-lol. I found it quite interesting. I just enjoy the performances put on by Franco and the TPOK jazz's, it's far from what Congolaise music has become-- who's dancer shakes her ass the best:-) c'est dommage!!!

I love African music from an older generation because of the messages they carried and the fact that a lot of them played their own instruments. For Zambia I can talk about Alick Nkhata, Paul Ngozi, Professor P.K Chishala, the Mulemena boys! The thing with Zambian music these days is that we have lost touch with the roots of 'Zambian' music. There is a lot of stuff in vernacular which is well and good, but it's mostly R&B in a Zambian language and not Zambian music per se. I wish I could hear more instruments being played by the singer or his/ her band and not all that piano synthesized stuff. How about utilizing the drums, the xylophone, the kalimba, msekese (haha)...etc. Many other African musicians are doing that today..i.e the beautiful music from Mali, or even our neighbor Oliver Mtukudzi (love him!). Zambian voices are beautiful...but we have to stop trying to compete with the wester market and try to perfect the traditional sounds already available to us. While on that point it would be wrong of me to forget to complement Angela Nyirenda because I think she is one of the few to stray from R&B.

I realise this should have been 2 posts...but it's my blog and I felt lazy to open another page...sue me:-)

Oh and thanks Diva for the news about the stampede in Zambia...that was one of those bitter sweet stories-- sweet in that Zambia won the soccer game 3-0, and bitter that 12 soccer fans died in the process. http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/6881462