Looky what I found...

So I am going through my camera looking at pictures I took this weekend, and as I keep going back on the playback screen I stumble upon these photos I took when I crashed ECAASU at Penn because our friends Ill Literacy, Magnetic North, Taiyo Na, and Kelly Tsai were all either performing or facilitating a workshop. This was like back in early March... Oh well better late than never right?

The adventure begins with picking up my friend and former Ill Literacy Tour Manager Jon De Castro. Taking a break from booking artists, he and I scheme together to crash ECAASU because if there's anything we've learned in the spoken word business it's that there's power in numbers.
And you can't deny a baby... although Jon thinks all I have to say is "Don't you know who I am"?

Of course Jon requests that we fill up on cheesesteaks before heading out to the show, so I take him to Dalessandro's, which is technically in Roxborough, but my fave Philly spot for cheesesteaks, Jon's Pork Sandwiches, was already closed.

After having our fill we managed to sneak into the artist's Green Room where we meet up with Derek from Magnetic North and Taiyo getting ready for their set. Derek's other half Theresa was running late so we didn't get to take a picture with her, but be on the lookout as they are dropping a new album soon.

If you have a guitar my child will find you. Good thing Taiyo is welcoming of babies!

This could be an album cover! Taiyo and Aditi's greatest hits, haha...

This is Hari Kondabolu. Even though he was quiet and very isolated from the rest of the room, we found out later he was just really trying to get his comedy routine down, and killed it onstage. Originally from Queens, Hari is making a name for himself as a comedian, and I am all about supporting comedians of color who do not sell out to get a laugh. Click here to see a clip of Hari at work.

Spoken word artists are normally not that excited about keynote speeches but when the special invited gust is none other than Helen Zia, aka the Godmother of Asian American consciousness and identity (okay I made that up, that's not her real title but if you study Asian American culture her writings will definitely be a part of your reading). Of course EVERYONE ELSE showed up so the artist groupies friends got stuck with these high ass far ass balcony seats and I could not get a clear picture of Helen. But it all ended up being worth seeing her speak as she mentioned Laos and I got to shout out "Laos in the House" in response. Ha!

The next day I visited Ill Literacy in their workshop on how to be a better activist on your campus.
And then to Kelly's workshop on writing spoken word poetry, which was also very physically interactive.
Aditi got to play too, which was fun for her but stressful for me as I was worried about her being accidentally stepped on and eating random skittles on the floor. Afterwards what was left of the Spoken Word forces joined together and ate a nice dinner at Bubble House.


And my child ate sweet potato fries for the first time. Yay. Anyway be sure to catch me and Kelly at this week's and next week's Home: Far and Near shows at the Asian Arts Initiative.

Phill-Literacy! Part I

Last weekend, our homes from Cali, Ill-Literacy made a stop to Philly on their extended East Coast Tour, along with their full live band The Hi-Lifes. They arrived tired and hungry late Thursday night so I took them to eat where else, Chinatown.

From left to right, half of Dahlak's face, Ruby, Tazika (Did I spell that wrong? Sorry), and Sam aka Scoot.
I took them to David's Mai Lai Wah because they could account for a table of 10, plus they have these bomb-ass salt and pepper chicken wings which Adriel and Dahlak are tearing up (Dahlak, as you can see doesn't like getting his pic taken during eating, hence the middle finger).

And then all the Asians - Adriel, Me, Chris aka DJ Flow and Ruby - posing with our Tsingtao Beers. We were supposed to go a secret Q-Tip concert at Trocadero but by the time we were done eating dinner the longs had extebnded well beyond our waiting capability. So we went Karaoke singing around the corner at Yakatori Boy. Belwo is our squeezed elevator picture, that's Chris the bass player on the left, you know everyone else already.

Karaoke was fun, we'll just leave it at that. The Ill crew had a long day ahead of them anyway.

Here's Nico the next day at CCP, along with Michelle's poetry club students, getting them a intro worthy of an opening. See what happens when nobody wants to sit up front?

Ruby was busy holding down the merchandise table...

and gave me my very own signed and autographed copy of her book Miss Universe! Check out her intervview with me on 215, if you get a chance.

Dahlak's turn to incite the crowd, from the other side of the room. These guys make full use of their space don't they?

After their amazingly inspirational show, it's down to business - signing autographs!

Not to mention, group picture time! This is where I made them say "Phill-Literacy". Yeah so original, I know, leave me alone.

Last time Adriel was here I took his to Denise Soul Food truck at 30th Street. He was jonesing for it again, so I had to treat 'em to another trip to the tasty pink truck.

While we waited for our orders, Ruby and Tazika got down to business right there on the sidewalk. Literally.

Tazika ordered an all veggie meal, which I didn;t even know you could do - rice and beans, greens and sweet potatoes, yummy.

I ordered the fried catfish, mac and cheese and potato salad. All I can say was Hollerrrrrrrrrrr.

Nico and Adriel exchanged their plates up front. And where was the High Lifes this whole time?

getting a good ol' cheesesteak down at Campo's in Old City, of course! That's OJ the drummer in the far left, btw. See I always make sure my peeps get fed right. Anyway this is where my camera battery died. Adriel has a photo-journal of his own Philly adventures that you can see here, and Ruby put up pictures I took on her camera on her blog here. To see the conclusion of the Swarthmore Show from the balcony section, Michelle's uploading those soon.

It's a Celebration Bitches!

In honor of Barack Hussein Obama's Presidential Election celebration, and the welcoming of our friends from the Bay, super spoken word group Ill-Literacy to Philly this week, I'm posting this video of Dahlak's track Black Genius from his forthcoming mixtape dropping next week. The video was put together by Adam Cain. You can download the track off the Ill-Literacy's site where you can also find details of where they're performing next.

John McCain and "That One"

A video from our homie Adriel in the Bay. Enjoy.

--Catzie

Phill-Literacy!

So that amazing group of poets from the Bay were here in Philly for a night, yes I'm talking about Ill- Literacy. And because I am lazy and a loser, I didn't listen to my voicemail nor did I call Adriel back (I know I'm awful) when he first phoned me so when he made one last attempt to reconnect before hopping on the Chinatown bus to NYC, Ruby, Nico and Dahlak had already gone their separate ways. I didnt want to leave Adriel all alone and bored in the city so I told him to meet me at my office and informally made it "Bring Your Friends to Work Day" or as we call it in the artist world "Bring Your Fellow Artist to Your Real Day Job Day". Fortunately, I work for two.one.five magazine and my boss knows I'm a bossy bitch, so I decided to rent a car via Phillycarshare and took Adriel to Denise's Jamaican Food Lunch truck, right outside the 30th Street Mail station.

Since I was lucky enough to have a car today, I drove all the way up to West, West Philly to see about getting some doubles from the Brown Sugar Bakery, a Trinidadian Restaurant. If you don't know what doubles are, they are sandwiches made from curried chickpeas and two fried flatbreads. They're street food, and usually sold with wax paper twisted on the bottom to keep the filling from falling out. At Brown Sugar, they only have doubles from Wednesdays to Saturday, and cost $1.50. I was so excited I couldn't stop talking about them driving through traffic while Adriel held a hot bag of Jamaican food sitting on his lap trying to tell me the story of how people are confusing them a group from America's Best Dance crew, because they happen to be a group of mixed ethnicities and genders as well. Of course when I got there... they were ALL SOLD OUT. I couldn't believe it, the lunch rush hour wasn't even over yet. And it wasn't only Thursday. I left instead with 3 vegetarian patties and headed back to the office. During this whole time I realized that Adriel had been taking pictures of me while reiterating to me the importance of continually updating your blog. Albeit it was a camera phone but he was thinking. I unfortunately was not. This is the only picture I could get of him.

And yes, it was also on a camera phone.



- until next time,
Catzie