and all lovers of the culture

the reality is, we’re just a mixed up bunch of so many cultures and races who were thrown together by european “settlers” and created our own unifying culture with a distinct style of music, art, fashion and food. just like so many other blended ethnicities, you adapt and make mango chutney when the world hands you mangoes!

*CHRIS GARCIA – “Chutney Bacchanal” (*no we are not related)

my obsession with FRONTS (or GRILLS) stems from a childhood of watching magical characters from the late 80′s to early 90′s.

be it the drug dealers on my block, the old west indian men my pops hung out with or even MADONNA on MTV with the single capped tooth. my inkling for golden enamel started as a spark and became a huge flame in no time.

in my younger and broker days i dabbled in caps, but those never lasted. by 2003, i could afford my own FRONTS. OSCAR, PETE and i took the train to THE COLISEUM in QUEENS to be fitted by an eastern-european jeweler. we stood in the middle of a mall as he stuck putty in a tray, which he eventually roughly placed into our mouths. at that moment neither one of us was concerned about the cleanliness of his tools, more ecstatic on how we would look with the finished product.

i wanted them to be simple and symmetrical, while OSCAR went for a set that would be off set. since our first time together, i’ve managed to collect a couple other sets that are on the more elaborate side.

haven’t worn them in years, maybe i should give them a good go again.

we have to be the only nerds…but weekends in NYC is not for our kind.

TANKA are 31-syllable poems that have been the most popular form of poetry in Japan for at least 1300 years. As a form of poetry, tanka is older than haiku, and tanka poems evoke a moment or mark an occasion with concision and musicality. In English and other languages, we usually divide the lines into the five syllabic units: 5-7-5-7-7

you guys should try writing your own. i’m not as good with TANKA as i am with HAIKU…DOMO ARIGATO!!!

via ANGELO’S BLOG

(okay my fellow JAMAICANS, i mean no harm in the title so please don’t form your hands into a gun and pretend shoot me).

when people think of the most popular place in the Caribbean, they usually think of JAMAICA first. thats cool. i mean some of the most profound icons have come out of JA, like BOB MARLEY (although he makes me think of my white friends who burn incense and smoke ganja) and THE WET T-SHIRT GIRL. you know the girl i’m talking about…

the ever so classic travel advertisement for JAMAICA of the curvy west-indian lady in a throbbing and soaking wet red t-shirt which reads JAMAICA…always stood out to me as looking like a TRINI. i mean, i know we can all somewhat look similar – but there was something in her eye that said to me “my roti isn’t empty, it has some dal in it”.

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(i’m sure when this image was posted in travel agencies across the world, the fathers of every family who had to take their clan on vacation was SOLD on JAMAICA.)

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just like i guessed it, i researched and found out she was in fact a TRINIDADIAN!

as the story goes…

“She is Trinidadian Sintra Arunte-Bronte…

who caught the eye of a photographer from Doyle Dane, an American advertising company commissioned by the JTB to do the poster, as she stood outside the hotel, now known as Le Meridien Jamaica Pegasus. Sintra was dressed in a close-fitting orange, brown and gold knit top, with a low scooped neckline. The photographer was scouting for a woman who could portray the beauty of an island woman and she was game.”

“It took seven and a half hours to capture the right effect. The photographer said to me, ‘Sintra I want you to think of the most beautiful thing or person while posing’. I thought of a Jamaican man I had fallen in love with from the first day I set my eyes on him. That picture was dedicated to him and will be for the rest of my life,” she said.

The impact of the poster immediately triggered a number of fairytale events in Sintra’s life and continue to do so today. A boat owned by a wealthy Montegonian, John McConnell, was named after her, so too was a race horse and two years ago a Swiss company named one of the watches from the Rado line, Sintra.

So where has Sintra been all these years?

She runs a successful destination management company, A.J.M. Tours, in her homeland Trinidad. Her company handles air and ground charters, as well as tours between Trinidad and Tobago and a charter from New York to Tobago with 112 passengers every week. She is more voluptuous now and still turns heads whenever she walks into a room.

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mhmmm. i know everyone and their mama has tried to re-inact this photo, but since i’m TRINI and i like JAMAICAN boys (well actually, BOYS period) i may be able to pull it off correctly.

i know you’ll never read this because you don’t have a computer, internet or cell phone – BUT i’m taking you on your first (and long overdue) vacation, so we can sip pina coladas on a beach and flirt with boys.

my memories of sunflower seeds stretch back to being a youth in downtown albany. stopping at the bodega on my way to middle school and filling up on quarter waters, Doritoes, BBQ chips, and a pack of Sunflower Seeds. they were probably the most nutritious part of that so called breakfast. it was something we all did. spending the little money we had on empty calories…oh to be young again.

now every time i ride the train and see a pile of spat out seeds on the train floor, i get a nice nostalgic feeling – mixed with a nauseousness due to seeing re-gurgitated food on a public floor (eww).

*STEVE STEVERSON.

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do you guys have any good stories on sunflower seeds or what memories they muster up for you?

this time it was PARIS…last time it was KOREA. jeez, i wish i could spot these fly kids myself

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*i love everything french. french fries, french kisses and french people! paris is the truth!!! thanks for the support