According to Jay Perez, semiotics would place Terry Hogan in a higher position in the knowledge scale than Vincent Edward Jackson. The logic: even if Bo knows, Hogan still knows best.

The childhood memories of professional wrestling and the “real American hero” as a blond (albeit balding) white male in yellow spandex resonated with me much as it did with Jay as he read from his work in progress, “The Passion of El Hulk Hogancito”, on Sunday. But more than Hogan, it was Ultimate Warrior who left a larger imprint on my childhood. Fans nostalgic of the days when the Warrior would nonsensically rant, would best to do themselves the favor of not watching The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, unless one wants to feel the same feeling felt when it was realized that Santa was only used as a moral compass for children.

Professional wrestling, the hyper-masculine soap opera, that socialized many of us about ethnicity through stereotypes: Junkyard Dog, Jimmy Superfly Snuka, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, Iron Sheik, etc. It was all that one needed as a kid who never questioned his or her invincibility to land safely when jumping off the counter onto a makeshift ring consisting of couch cushions and pillows on the living room floor. The Warrior (which the arch-conservative has now legally changed his name) is not exempt from WWF’s othering of others, as his persona was an appropriation of an ethnically ambiguous savage. But this is what was normalized in our youth, singing Hogan’s theme and associating whiteness with being Real American.

With the thoughts of wrestling’s perepetuation of white supremacy that Jay’s reading had left me, in addition to the strong documentation of his mother’s experience of racism in Chicago (the underlying story told), I suddenly felt the presence of a 4.3 seismic movements. The spirit of John Tenta made its presence felt in the Bay this morning.

What was the symbolism behind the tectonic plate shift? It must mean that Earthquake is asking for a rematch with El Hulk Hogancito from Summer Slam 1990. Or it means that John Tenta has acknowledged his defeat and is asking for you to listen and experience Jay’s storytelling. There are two more dates and word has it Typhoon Tugboat will be in attendance just as he was expected to be at Hulk’s side during Summer Slam.

Cop your tickets for either April 4 or 5.

-Ninoy Brown

Because this is too good for Twitter*

click picture for the trailer

Finally, after hearing stories about controversy regarding the making of one my favorite childhood books, the trailer has finally been released for the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are.

Director Spike Jonze wanted to make sure that the film was made true to the story originally written by Maurice Sendak.  Just like many movies, it fell prey to film studio politics.  Jonze’s project was said to be too dark, but then again, Sendak’s book was also said to have been too dark for children as well.  I remember being a snot-nosed kid getting shook reading about Max’s journey with the wild things.

For those who were not able to experience the same joy many of us received from this book as a youth, read the book, or better yet, there’s always YouTube.

*Actually, I digress.  This statement would then minimize some important things I twittered about but didn’t get around to create a full post, such as signing this petition to terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement in the Philippines.

-Ninoy Brown

Jason Magabo Perez, known to me as Jay, and known to some as the guy who would c-walk all over Oceanside when not racing his yellow Integra, is also known as an emerging literary genius who would never think of c-walking on a treadmill. It’s a privilege to know him, and it’s a pleasure for me to ask the readers in the Bay to check out his reading. -Ninoy Brown

THE PASSION OF EL HULK HOGANCITO
a multimedia performance reading of a novel-in-progress

by Jason Magabo Perez

…

YOU ARE INVITED:
March 28 - 29, April 4 - 5
Bayanihan Community Center
San Francisco, CA

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/56330

(more…)

As a former member of the legendary Boogie Down Productions, D-Nice eventually made his own lightweight solo mark with an album and song entitled, They Call Me D-Nice.  His follow up album, To tha Rescue, didn’t get as much shine, and for two decades, not much was heard from the guy… until about two years ago when the Hip-Hop blog networks began its exponential growth.

With the muck and oversaturation of blogs, you had to do as much work finding a good blog to read as starting your own.  Rather than just dorm room college Hip-Hop nerds along with a few notable journalists and academics, artists began opening their own Blogger and WordPress accounts to speak their piece and even document their own experiences.

One particular blog post that grabbed attention was entitled, “My Run-In with the Infamous Larry Davis” by the man they call D-Nice [1].  This was an example of the possibility of the blog age: the ability for untold social accounts to be told [2].

On his blog, D-Nice began showcasing his new passion, photography.  During times where we see various legends struggling to connect to the newer generation and simply to make ends meet, it’s great to see someone like D-Nice re-imagining his work through a different artistic medium.  His style is social documentation, taking  influence from his and one of my own heroes, Gordon Parks.

When D-Nice began dropping his “True Hip-Hop Stories” series a natural progression was seen in how he captured, on video, the voices of stories untold: from Masta Ace, Monie Love, Buckshot, Dana Dane to Sadat X [3].  One of the more captivating THHS was “The Homeless Emcee”, telling a man’s bleak and painful story.  If you haven’t seen any of these videos, do yourself a favor and watch them.

The D-Nice Blog

[1] You know Larry Davis from various rap verses such as Kid Hood’s (RIP) “I’m wild like Larry Davis”.  For some word’s on Hood, listen to J Period’s social documentary epic “The (Abstract) Best” Q-Tip mix.

[2] And the ability for those musically obsessed with liner notes and behind the scenes accounts to cram more (trivial) information into their brains.

[3] While he talks a lot about “Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down”, the homoephobic hate crime suggestive lyrics unfortunately don’t get touched.

-Ninoy Brown

Last Sunday, I saw the live play about this book, wrote a blog about.  Like to read it?  Here it go!:

An Angry Black White Boy’s Post-Racial Attitude

Interesting enough, when I got back home that evening, I caught DL Hughley who had an interesting show with Chuck D and Michael Steele.  Peep it: Black Steele in an Hour of Chaos

-Ninoy Brown

Big ups to Bam:

(click the picture to view)

We’ve (actually Mark the tech boy) been trying to tweek things on our WordPress for a while to be able embed flash players aside from YouTube.  After hitting up several blogs that take longer to load than Myspace rapper #43439’s or a bopper’s Myspace page, it’s probably best to avoid clogging the blog with a bunch of Vimeo embeds and just post them this manner.

*I mention this to have something to blog about and not Twitter and because mentioning technical issues in posts is post-modern.

-Ninoy Brown

This is 10 year Solveig.  Solveig is a graffiti phenom from Brighton, Englad.  She started doing pieces when she was 8 years old.  Skills are what she possesses.

Did I mention that she does tats too!

More pictures of hers can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/supersolveig/

-Ninoy Brown