TOMORROW NIGHT - RAMSKY & HIS AFRO'S 28TH BIRTHDAY JAM AT BERRY PARK!!!

Tomorrow night come join us as at Berry Park in Williamsburg, BK while we honor one of Lebanon's finest young men, Ribal Rayess, as he turns 28 at midnight. In case you don't know Ribal, he's one of my best friends one of 3 people responsible for my continuing to live here in New York. If it wasn't for him sticking his neck for me to get me some work in one of my fields, I'd be living in Miami with Mom a sad 31 year old. But that story will be written a later time, this passage is about Ribal aka Ramsky.
We'll laugh, we'll dance and we'll be jamming from 9 o'clock til the sun come up. We'll spin the hits, we'll toast Ribal, so if you're down bring an afro or something Pro-Lebanese like Baklava or something like that. Hope to see yall there!

Start Time:	Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 9:00pm
End Time:	Sunday, November 8, 2009 at 5:00am
Location:	Berry Park
Street:	Corner of North 14th & Berry St.
City/Town:	Brooklyn, NY

Here is a little inspiration for the night below.

TONIGHT! -11.04.09 - UNDER ONE ROOF

Looking for something to combat that post-Halloween hangover?? Looking for that one thing to make that Thursday morning slightly a bit more memorable? Then come jam tonight at Berry Park with us!

Come anytime after 8 and we'll be playing the Yankees game on a huge screen for all those interested to see.

Boogaloo, Doo Wop, Disco & Boogie will be played all under one roof in no discernible order.

Berry Park is located at North 14th Street & Berry St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The L Train to Bedford Ave gets you there. Starts at 8pm and ends when you decide you've had enough.

If you live in the city or Williamsburg/Greenpoint and have not been to Berry Park, I highly suggest you check this place out! Amazing roof deck and main floor plus excellent beers for beer lovers and of course plenty of space to dance.

HALLOWEEN 2009 at BERRY PARK

Photos from the Halloween Masquerade Ball aka Sandra Dillon's Birthday Jam I DJ'd at Berry Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.













































Photos taken by Esmahan Succar, Luiggi Tapuch, Ribal Rayess & Jo Senez.

¡Boogaloo Si Va Con Migo!

A week ago I saw this post on Soul Sides about a documentary PBS did about 'Salsa' music it's origins and so on. And while I detest the term 'Salsa' to describe Latin music, (they don't call Black music 'Hot Sauce' or White music 'Ketchup' or Chinese music 'Soy Sauce'), the one thing that really peaked my interest was it's brief telling of how the Latin Boogaloo scene that started in New York City during the late 1960's. Since I spin Latin Boogaloo pretty much anytime I get a gig, I wanted to see what they would talk about, which artists, etc. Though they basically only told the rise and demise of Fania Records and left out a bunch of other artists & musicians I love & spin on a regular basis who's stories I was fascinated in learning more about, it was still a pretty good summary for someone just getting into the Latin Boogaloo music scene. Since I'll be posting many mixes as well as spinning a little boogaloo/disco boogie jam in 2 weeks at Berry Park in Williamsburg, BK, I figured this would be a good prelude to the party for those not acquainted.

Mad slugs

Click here to view video

Happy Anniversary

On October 22nd, 1977, my mom & pop got married and less than a year later my mama gave birth to me. 6 & a half years after that mama gave birth to my lil bro and the story goes on and on. This I'll say, life really makes no sense whatsoever and for a person who's searching for 'sense' in every waking thing about life and the world, how my parents met really had no sense whatsover.

At their 10 year anniversary (when I was 9), my parents had an anniversary party at our old crib in Schuamburg, Suburban Chicago. I wanted to give a little speech in front of them, my other fam and my fam's friends in honor of my first 9 years living as their son and their 10 years of marriage. I think I got about 3 sentences into my 'ode to them', as I started to say, "happy 10 year anniversary, here's to 50 more' before completely breaking down into a full tilt cryfest that brought all the 'awwwwwwwwwwwwwww's' out of my fam and their friends.

I'm not sure if my mother remembers that but I'm curious to see if she does because I think I knew on some sub-conscious level why I broke down so hard. It was because I knew they wouldn't be together forever. And not for divorce but because one of them was going to die an early death. As it turned out, it was my pops that passed away 13 years later on September 9, 2000 at the age of 66. He had 2 previous marriages and had a son from each wife before meeting my mom. My mom & pop stayed together til my Pops last breath. I wonder how they would've acted & reacted towards one another now that their 2 boys have left home, I'm sure they woulda been a damn good pair of wise ole folks that had their quirky particular chemistry that led you to believe they liked each other.

My Pop left the revolution behind in Cuba in 1966, because the revolution in Cuba wasn't really a revolution of the people as Castro had convinced his native people but just a revolution of a Cuban based Fascist regime. When my pop's cousin was sentenced to 20+ years in prison in Cuba for 'Counter-Revolutionary' activities as they put it my Pop thought it was best to leave everything he knew behind and start over. I think now what I thought then when I first had the perspective, "how many people around the world have done this?" Way too many is the answer. He left his oldest son behind in Cuba which, til the day he died, was the single toughest thing he ever had to deal with as a human being. I don't think he ever forgave himself for that which, though I never told him this, wasn't fair to him in the least.

One day I may get into the specifics of what exactly he went through growing up but until then I'll just say it was hard, very hard. Nonetheless Pop got asylum and moved to Madrid where he lived for a year with his 2nd oldest son (my half-brother) before moving to Chicago in 1968. He would live there until 1990 where we as a family moved to Miami. It was there he met my mother, who's journey to Chicago couldn't have been more different than my father's.

My mother was the oldest of 7, 5 girls and 2 boys. She essentially was a 2nd parent to that household because while her mother worked multiple jobs to keep the house afloat, her father was a drunken womanizer who would beat his wife, my mom's mom. My mom would often stand in between my grandfather and grandmother as he would try to beat her in one of his drunken rages. Though she never told me this I'm sure this was one of the reasons she was such a tough cookie when it came to talking business, negotiating, hustling, etc. She was no bullshitter and you could never pull one over her head.

In essence, she left Ecuador to escape everything she had grown up knowing and seeing. Nothing politcal like my father, though my father had issues with his own fam, but purely personal and familial. She came to California to visit her sister and then to Chicago to visit a friend for only a a few weeks. It was there her friend convinced her to stay in Chicago and start a new life there. She never consciously left Ecuador to move to the U.S., she just left to get the hell out. A few months later she decided to stay in Chicago, she and another friend of hers went to a discoteque to hang, dance and do whatever those kids in the late 70's did in those times. Which I think was just have fun, dance and not take pictures for Facebook or Myspace or any other vanity filled . Her friend at the discoteque that night happened to fancy this older looking dude with salt & pepper hair and green eyes. Too bad for her friend that the salt & pepper haired guy was actually fancying my mother the whole time!

9 months later, the salt & pepper haired guy & my mother got married and 10 months after had their first child who they named after the salt & pepper haired guy's favorite baseball player - Mickey Mantle. And the rest as they say is history. Believe me I could write a mini-novel about their story from this point forward but let me stop here and just say: Mom & Pop I love you both more than I even comprehend and to think of what you both went through growing up individually how you both got to where you got to eventually meet, marry, have kids and become the parents you both became (in my Pop's case the father he already was) is something I could spend the rest of my life thanking you for. I never grew up seeing what you both had to unfortunately grow up seeing.

You both overcame so much to get here and by tooth & nail clawed your way to make a decent living for your kids to never see a level of poverty other kids in this country (and other countries too) see all too much. We definitely were not rich by any means but we also weren't poor either. Even though at different points in my life I've heard you both say, "I have no idea how you turned out this way, because you didn't get this from us", I know that I actually did get this from you because I had no other influence as big as the both of you.

Funny this was supposed to be a one paragraph "happy anniversary" and I love you fest on this blog but it turned into a mini-biography so if anyone other than me made it to this point reading this I guess I'll say thanks and I'm sorry??

But ma & pop I love you, Pops R.I.P. and Ma keep doing exactly what you've been doing your whole life to this point - fight and fight and fight like the fighter you are. I'm sorry you never got the chance to have your relationship renaissance with Pop after me and Andy left home for our own journeys.

The Maddest of slugs & love...

Here we go...

So I've been trying to figure out what and how to start this thing off and I keep deleting what I write and start over. What do I start this thing off with? Fuck writing about the stupid ass Balloon Boy and his dad. And who really gives a shit if it was a hoax or not? The real hoax is being played on you for paying so much attention to that when your attention should be focused on other things such as how money is printed in this country for starters.

So I figured to why not start it off with a combination of a couple things which are a passion in my life, Film & The Venus Project/Zeitgeist Movement. I first stumbled upon this clip I'm posting via audio only before knowing who this was when I was listening to a Peter Joseph radio address and only after it was pointed out by Mr. Joseph did I know that it was Charlie Chaplin from his 1940 satire on the Third Reich called The Great Dictator. A YouTube user, who I do not know, by the name of 'IrishJV' posted the end monologue from The Great Dictator and set it to the music from the finale of Zeitgeist: Addendum. This clip gave me goose bumps when I saw it because not only was this film released almost 70 years ago but it holds true to many of the beliefs/ideas that Jacque Fresco would begin to explore himself a few years later. Without further adieu here is the clip. Enjoy!



Mad Slugs, Mad Love.