out 19

Hello again outsiders. It is ma'atology here. Sorry for the delay, but a brither had a long week this week. I did a little side gig of counting cars at Scott Air Force Base for some extra ends and a brother had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get to Scoitt at 6 and stay til 6 in the afternoon. Hey even outside people like myself have to come inside sometimes. LOL.
But I digress. First off I would like to say that I found that this week that I will be picking up an award at The National Association of Black Journalists Communications Awards this Saturday. I entered two of my works one was the Emmy nominated piece I done (along with producer Pete Foggy) on Maxx Jazz recording artist Renee Marie and a cover story I wrote on the St. Louis based Cuzzo label for the defunct newzine, Flipside. I think the first piece won. I'm not for sure about the second. but I am greatful and thankful to win and with iot coming from NABJ, makes it even more special (thanks Tavia for the invitation reminder LOL) The ceremony will take place at 5:30 p.m. at Simon Hall at Wash U. My boy Pete gave me the news about the win and jokingly asked if I was going to wear my Morpheus suit, the one I wore for the Emmys. Well, that wont be happening. Thats one thing about Ma'at, you will never see me wear something that extravagant at two consecutive high-brow events.

Now a recap of my week. Last Thursday, I checked out the Filmmakers Showcase Brunch which was a celebration of the films and filmmakers who had films that were being shown at this year's St. Louis International Film festival (kudos to Chris Clark for the tix). The event took place at the house of Ron Stevens, a cool guy who owns a radio syndication biz and his lovely wife Joy, and from the looks of that multi roomed(I counted at least 30 rooms including 10 bathrooms ), three-storied crib, it seems as though he could fit every syndicated radio staion in a room. This man's house is HUGE. His basement alone is the size of the Formula nightclub. All the fancy artwork and artifacts (knights from the 1800's) It's at a gated community in the CWE and I must say, I was deeply impressed with his house, I mean, palace. We hit off quite well and hopefully will work with him the near future (I sent the mp3's to ya) I met many great people who have films in the fest and the brunch was tasty. I really liked the quiche and the free Hurricanes. LOL.

Last Saturday, I checked out Steve Lacy, I mean Christopher Stevens' Birthday party at Club Seven (Thanks to Lacy and his partner Carvonne for hooking me up with the entire weekend). Lacy always brings the heat when it comes to his birthday parties because all types of people from all races, colors and persuasions be up in there getting their party on and celbrating Lacy's life day. VIP was cool. They had Chinese food (the egg rolls were off the chain) and I kicked it most of the time up in there until the drinks came through and had to walk around up in there (my bad Harry for opening up the door in VIP to hear a cell phone call. I wasnt trying to do anything crazy). Around 1 ish, things was really poppin. The DJ--DJ AJ was OK. He's no DJ Needles, but he kept the music going (he played Nelly's Grillz a multitude of times). At this time si hung near the bar area on the Seven side of the club. My bar hangers were Kameron, Terrence, Christiaan (I saw you trying to nino pop) , hollabackboi, and Laton Chairs. What was so off the chain was Laton was buying apple martinis for all of us non stop. And that's all I need to hear for me to get my party on. I was gettin' nice and this party girl and her friend were dancing in front of Kam and I so I decided to PAR-TAKE in the opportunity. So, I got up on her and got my dance on. Now the trip part came when this brother behind me who was wearing a black hat said to me, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about." Huh? Talking about what? I was like, is this brotha gettin turned on by her, me, or both? At that time, I could care less, cause after 1 o'clock, people up in the club was whateva, whateva. Then hollaback was trying to get an afterparty going if you know what I mean and wanted me to call their celly after the club closed (their phone never picked up BTW) When it got to be close to 3 in the morn, Dj AJ, was like it was time for us to go and was saying, "If you don't want to go to jail, then you better leave, the club is closed." The fireman's door of the club was lifted and people started hauling ass out of there-- slowly to get those digits from whomever or the addy to ones crib to get their horizontal swerve on. . I heard that the official after party was at Bottoms Up on the East Side. I didnt have any singles in my wallet, so I know I wasnt going there. So I walked up to the front saying my goodbyes to the other socialites and stayed out front for a minute. Other party people I saw up in there were Lynette, Jamelle (sporting cornrolls), Trez Adams, Jamie (the girl not the boy), and Demond Tucker--oops, almost forgot BILL BEENE, the Partyline photographa!

Last Sunday, I checked out Steve Lacy's and Carvonne' White's Hair Show, "It's All About Hair" at the Hyatt Regency near Union Station. The event was a culmination of other events prior to and after the hair show where hair stylists from in and out of town facilitated workshops and classes about hair and what to do with it whether it's cutting it, pressing it, ironing it, coloring it, braiding it or weaving it. Me and Kam checked it out. We sat next to Kam's colleague, Darlene that both work at PT's Salon off 270 on east Page (PLUG-PLUG) More than 300 hair fans, stylists and onlookers sat patiently for the show to start. Now I know how it is when it comes to productions (I've done five theatericals myself) and trying to get folks and last minute things together is a lot of hard work and my boy Lacy was stage managing, prop handling (I'll get more into this later on) , sweeping the stage off and award handling. Brother was working harder than a Jamaican for real. I am not mad at ya. If you have to depend on somebody to get it done, do it yourself. But getting back to the hair show, the show started off with a bang with a hot tease with a tall hair model with long flowing blowhair in a very long and TIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT (as in fit) leather dominitrix outfit with colossal black heels (like the ones the chick in the group Dee-Lite used to wear back in the day) hopping up to the stage (Yes, I said hopping, she could not walk regularly in that outfit). A guy (I didnt catch his name) helped her on to the T part of the catwalk stage up to a makeshift apparatus that also had steps where she did a vamp dance using mostly her long colorful fingernails and danced to a sexy electronic drum beat with the refrain Electrify Me cooing in the background. What made it even more sexy was when the model was shaking her hair and bending her neck toward the guy so he can cut her hair. It was a hot scene. Soon after that the emcee of the evening, Michellene, graced the podium where she entertained for the reaming two hours with humor and off-the cuff comments on everything and everybody. The local stylists featured were Bonita Riochardson from Eclectic Designz, Daisha, from Selah Salon, Tiffany Rodgers from Shi Salon, Tahsa Harris Reed from Midwest Styles, Candace Young from B.I. M., Marc Stevens from Danielles, Brandon Williams from 911, Ken'Ya from Carla's Casual Creations and of course Christopher Steven. They also had a hair presentation by Donnal of Donnal's Hair Studio , an Caublasian guy who did a model's hair in less than 30 minutes. It was bit tedious, but it was interseting to see him cut her hair from long to neck length. Out of town stylists included Patric Bradley reppin' Texas and Virginia and Freddie Jones ( A cancer survivor by the way) reppin Dallas, and Amos Jordon reppin North Carolina. Most of the stylists' hair show routines were pretty much the same where the models get their hair tweaked and cut then they walked down the runway. There were some that were pretty creative in their presentations like Miss Michelle Ashwood from Steven Styles doing a dating Game skit with the models and Brandon Williams of 911 doing a Hollywood award show skit which was the highlight of the evening. They had models who looked and wore their hair like Missy Elliot, Sierra, Fantasia and Destiny's Child that took over espcecially the model who performed as Beyonce. Sistagirl had the hair and applebottom body like Beyonce. They started off from the back of the room in feather boas and when their music came on (Destiny's "Lose My Breath") , smoke came from the stage and they did their routine on stage exactly like the video from that song. It was off the chain and when it was over, there were some that gave the skit a standing O and when hairstylist Brandon came out with some hairspray and spraying the models; hair he sprayed them down!There were also some award presentations given out to those who did remarkable works, one was STL hairstylist Everett Johnson who got the Trailblazer Award who, at first just said thank you, but when he was asked by the mistress of ceremonies to come back up to say more (she say he did his speech like Russell Simmons. LOL), he started to get choke dup when he said he dedicated his award to hi smother who passed three years ago. That was real and a touching monet in the show. Louise Holliday received the Lifetime Achievement Award, a mover and shaker in the hair biz, a beautiful and spry elderly lady who was more excited for those who worked on the show than for her own accomplishments. She also modeld earlier on in the show showing off her well curled white hair. OK, the improv moment in the show occurred during Freddie Jones' scene when two guys brought out a long sofa chair and stood it in the middle of the stage. Before you know it, the mistress of ceremonies asked for some guys in the audience to help move the sofa chair upstage. With me and Kam being near the front, and a lack of many men there, we volunteered to do it along with a brotha (whose name slips me now) who was sitting on the opposite side of the room got up to move it and then the hostess said, "Okay we have Usher, LL, and 50 to help." the audience chuckled, so before I got to the stage to help move the sofa, I seized the moment by raising up my hands in a victory pose and got several sistas in the audience giving me catcalls(I see I still gots it. LOL) . I must have been Usher cause I had on a blue Kangol, a striped blue shirt with big white cuffs and blue wide legged pants cause the other guys were dressed more toned down. We also had to move it back in the lobby after the skit was over, but I must say, I know I need to be on somebody's stage cause like pork, I'm such a ham!

Before I close let me say congrats to Chill da Playa and his wife Stephanie, two local spit poets, who recently got married (where was my RSVP at? LOL).

The gas face goes to the gossip blogger that STL American's Delores Shante talked about who was saying that it seemed as though writers who are in the STL who write about hip-hop in the St. Louis Post and American are gay. That was extremely FOUL. Why would someone wanna go there? What does writing hip-hop and being gay have anything in common? Here we go again with this homophobia going on. That is the problem with hip-hop now, espcially the gangsta hip-hop, it's homophobic and misogynistic in its imagery and lyrics. Objectifying the hypermasculinity in gangsta hip-hop gives no room for those hip-hop artists who are not hardcore rappers and just rap, say like Kanye West or Common. I don't understand it. Maybe I can make this a topic for my upcoming talk show. I see that this has been blown way out of proportion. To check out was Delores Shante had to say about this, pick up this week's American or peep it out at stlamerican.com under Partyline section.

Next time, I will report on the Marla Gibbs jazz Cd Listening Party at Formula I attended this past Thursday, My NABJ Award celebratory drink at 609, the NABJ Awards, Joel King''s stage reading at the STL Public Library and anything else that may come up.

Until then, see ya outside!