My Chinese Astrology

You are born under the sign of the Dragon and your element is Fire

At first sight, your personality is outstanding: in situations where other people would prefer the security and the tranquillity of a life devoid of risk, you choose challenges, even though there is some degree of uncertainty and latent conflicts.

You do not pay much attention to your life's limitations, therefore, you may be unrealistic and you do not hesitate to fully express your intentions and ambitions. Of course, the danger is that you think big, too big. You may attempt to conquer a chimera and show an excessive idealism.

Nevertheless, your energy is attractive and your infectious enthusiasm can overcome many a hurdle. As we all know, faith can move mountains! It seems difficult to stand up to you because you determination is very strong and your will, inflexible. There is a propensity to think little of other people's opinion but it is important that you control this natural tendency...

On the interpersonal plane, you often seek attention and you want to play a central role. You willingly give pieces of advice and instructions but you may forget to show diplomacy. Your prevailing strength of character can take you a long way. You brush aside obstacles, one after the other and better than anyone else, you reach your aims and you achieve exceptional success. Actually, wrongly or rightly, you can imagine your destiny only with brilliant and spectacular colours, in a word... grandiose!

Chinese astrology has five elements, which are referred to as agents: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water.

You have a deep affinity with the agent Fire. In China, this element corresponds to the planet Mars, the red colour and the number 7.

Fire implies dynamism and contagious warmth. You are a passionate person who gives a touch of intensity and unrelenting tension to every element of your life. One can only praise your energy and notice your presence. .

You belong to the category of people who never give up when they are facing hurdles. On the contrary, challenges stimulate you. You are particularly exhilarated whenever a new element emerges or when you are dealing with an unprecedented context.

Obviously, the danger is that you may rush headlong against a wall of insurmountable difficulties and act impulsively or thoughtlessly. It is important that you moderate your natural impetuosity as often as possible. Beware of untimely fits of anger!

However, your undeniable frankness prevails and your straightforward and honest character appeals to a good many interlocutors.

What would the Wizard give you?

So, the Wizard of Oz gave Scarecrow, a brain; the Tin Man ,a heart; the Lion, courage... So I was thinking... What would the Wizard give me? I have a brain, I have a heart, I have courage, I have patience, I'm home... Hhhmmm...

What would the Wizard give you?

Sexual Attraction

Well, now, isn't that a title to draw you in...?

So, you're out and about. Someone walks past you... What is it that makes you follow them with your eyes? Their scent? The way they walk? The clothes they're wearing? The smile they gave you when they caught your eye? The twinkle in their eye when you caught their gaze?The way they throw their head back and laugh when talking with their friends? The aura that surrounds them as the enter into your world for that moment in time?

What draws you in? At what point do your hormones take over? Do you start pay attention to what your loins are telling you?

It makes you bite your bottom lip, wink, smile... It gives you the courage to strike up a conversation to see where it leads... You hope it leads to a bedroom... But do you also hope that it leads to another phone call after that bedroom visit...? Sexual attraction is powerful. It motivates you. It causes you to do things you don't normally do on a daily basis. You don't brush your teeth in a sexual manner...but you do other things in sexual ways, do you not?

The nature of sexual attraction intrigues me. I always question what motivates someone in their sexual desire towards someone else... What attracts you? You are the beholder - what do you consider beauty?

Have you ever even thought about it yourself?

Graffiti: Art? Vandalism?

((I was asked to please post this on this blog, so here it is...)) I wrote this speech pretty much at the last minute, but I researched this for a while...My visual aids were a graph and a black book...By the way - some information was left out due to timing, so don't go crazy correcting me...lol

It was a hot summer evening in 1991 on Staten Island and my friends and I were enjoying the freedom of our youth. I was 15 years old, and that is when I first encountered the rattle and hiss and the sticky-sweet smell of a spray-paint can being used against the wall of a building in my neighborhood. As a group of us sat on the ground playing cards beneath a street light, two others were spraying letters the size of me in one fluid motion. I paused to watch, and realized that I had seen graffiti on the subway cars and everywhere I turned growing up in the 1980s in New York City - but I had never stopped to think about how it got there. And, now, here it was, happening just 5 feet away from me. As I watched these colors come alive...these squiggles transform into a word - a name - I was unmindful to the fact that I was witnessing an illegal act. I was simply awed by the imagination & creativity of what was before me. Art or vandalism: You make the choice with the information that I will present to you tonight.

Graffiti, as we know it today, began in the late 1960s when a teenage named Julio, who lived on 204th Street (borough unknown), began writing his name all over the city. Buildings, subway station walls, and especially subway cars were all riddled with "Julio 204." A few years later, in 1971, graffiti was given a face when The New York Times published the article "Taki 183 Spawns Pen Pals." No doubt that the notoriety that young Demitrios ("tag" or nickname Taki 183) had received throughout the city sparked other graffiti writers to seek the same fame. Thus began a period of what was known as an urban crisis in New York City.

During the 1970s, Mayor John Lindsay began the first anti-graffiti task force. Labeling graffiti writing as a "fad" and stating that unauthorized public writings were illegal, Mayor Lindsay sought to rid the city trains of the "tags" and slogans of the graffiti writers of the day. But the best that he could do under law was order the offenders to manually remove their work from the subway walls and cars. Then, in the fall of 1973, the MTA chose to repaint its entire fleet of subway cars, citing that this was part of the scheduled maintenance and was clever enough in its timing that this deterred graffiti writers from any new projects during the cold winter months. But it didn't last long. This was just a new canvas for the writers to work on.

As the fight continued throughout Mayor Ed Koch's administration in the 1980s, graffiti was being embraced with open arms as one of the elements of hip hop - forged from rap music, DJing, and breakdancing. Rap artists and hip hop celebrities could be seen sporting clothing with graffiti writing on it, while films such as "Wild Style", "Beat Street", "Style Wars", and "Turk 182" paid homage to the graffiti writers of the times, and even sneaker conglomerate Nike created a special shoe, called "Vandal", for the specific use of graffiti writers. As graffiti's popularity rose, so did the graffiti on subway cars, as you see in the graph I have here. According to City Journal.org, the number of subway cars that were covered in graffiti rose from 75% in the 1970s to 95% in the 1980s. Finally, through extensive efforts from the MTA, the last graffiti-covered subway car rolled off in May of 1989. Graffiti was gone from the subway cars but not from the city.

Yet, there I was, 2 years later in 1991, watching someone cover a wall with what would be considered graffiti, yet I felt that I was observing an artist at work. Was it an act of vandalism? Certainly. Was it an expression of art? Certainly. Just ask graffiti writer/artist Dems is he a vandal or an artist? Counter that with artist Mike Alvarez's statement: "Its an apples and oranges debate. You're defacing property that is not yours for the purpose of advertising your name and to show that you are better than the next writer - not because you are creating something to express yourself. If that was really the case, then it wouldn't be your name up there. I won't deny that they are artists, because it does take a certain amount of talent to create the things that graffiti writers create. But it is an act of vandalism and of saying 'f*ck the the world' when you do it in the middle of the night on something that someone else owns. What if I were to come into your bedroom and do it to you? Isn't that the same principle?"

This is a never-ending debate among artists and non-artists alike. Most influential on the topic is the media. Articles reflecting on graffiti arrests, such as The New York Times' April 2007 piece titled "Graffiti Figure Admired as Artist Now Faces Vandalism Charges", by Thomas J. Lueck, which offers an objective view on the unconventional way in which Alain Maridueña, also known as Alan Ket, was arrested for crimes such as trespass, criminal mischief, and making graffiti, to name a few. These are just a handful of the 14 charges that have him facing an unprecedented amount of years in prison and extremely large fines. A renowned artist who now works with the likes of Mark Ecko, a former graffiti writer turned fashion entrepreneur, Mr. Maridueña claims that he has retired from public graffiti and works as an artistic consultant to such companies as Ecko Unlimited (owned by Mark Ecko), Atari, MTV and Moet & Chandon. So whether or not Mr. Maridueña is a vandal or not, I do not know since it is yet to be determined in a court of law. What I do know is that he has a talent as an artist, just like many of the graffiti writers of my generation. I will let you judge for yourself by taking a look at a piece from Dems' black book...

*Special thanks to my boys Mikey & Dems for their help.*

Friendship

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "friendship" as: "the state of being friends" Talk about circular logic. Well, here is my short list (in no particular order)...

• loyalty
• understanding
• caring
• fun
• funny
• kindness
• honesty
• realness
• thoughtfulness
• helpful
• trustworthy
• compassionate

20+ year Blockhead...

Wow. Where do I begin? Well, my first memory of seeing them is the "Please Don't Go Girl" video while vacationing in Los Angeles at age 12. That summer, I was watching it at my parents' friends' house and I blurted out "He looks like Paul Newman!!" when I saw Joe. An instant connection, apparently. I, too, have an old soul - loving classic movies, songs, television shows, etc. Hey - so does Joey! So speed forward to a few months down the line. The song is climbing the charts and I'm happily living my tween years in the 80s... One cold day (lord help my memory cuz I can't remember what month!!) my cousins and I are hitting our favorite pizzeria in the Lower East Side of Manhattan... This hole in the wall place was pretty packed for our tastes, so we were a bit annoyed. I walked towards the back to sneak a peek at the commotion and - lo and behold! - I see the boys! Immediately, I rushed back, told my girls and we played it cool...true New Yorker style...lol... A few minutes waiting for our food, and we were approached by a man who said to us "Do you ladies know who New Kids on the Block are?" Again, NYer style, we shrugged and said "Sure" as nonchalant as a tween can. He then asked "Would you like to be in their new video?" *CHING* Smiles all around! It was a chorus of "Yeah!" and we were told to come to the Williamsburg Bridge in a half hour. So we ran to buy disposable cameras and pens and paper. The next thing I remember was getting direction - "Just act like you're bumping into them on the bridge and ask for autographs, take pictures, and just talk to them" Eager nods and "yes"es all around, we obliged. They were sooooo nice. Each one with their personality - Donnie was hyper, Joe was sarcastic, Jordan and Jonathan were pretty quiet but very polite, and Danny was all smiles. We were then told to go to Xavier High School either the next day or later on that day (oooh I'm old) - but I couldn't go because I had to be back in Staten Island. So few months later, "I'll Be Loving You (Forever)" shows up all over the television and I'm home bouncing up and down and yelling over the phone with my cousins over how excited and exciting it all was...lol... It snowballed from there!! It was all concerts, videos, tapes, cd's, posters, calendars, buttons, etc. from that moment on. The time was innocent, the days were endless,the hormones were raging, and the New Kids on the Block were everywhere. They helped give me an outlet at a time in my life when I didn't think I had one. Singing their songs at the top of my lungs drowned out the sorrows around me and within me. Seeing their faces happy, laughing, and silly helped bring smiles to my face whenever I felt I couldn't do so myself. My childhood was great - but I had rough times that I never should have experienced - and diving head first into the sugary pop innocence of their music brought sunshine to cloudy days. For that, I am grateful.

So, here, I am - 20 years later and still loving my Beantown boys. I got to meet them again at the Best Buy meet & greet on Tuesday in NYC and the first thing I blurted out (dammit I can't control my mouth when I'm around them - wtf) was "I was in I'll Be Loving You Forever when I was 12 years old on the Williamsburg Bridge" as soon as I got up to the table. Donnie smiled, popped up and gave me a hug, asked me how I've been and I think I turned beet red (most likely because that's the only shade I seem to turn) and told him fine, thanks, and they rushed me down the line to the rest. It was all such a blur - I have a funny picture of Jordan looking at my cleavage (boys will be boys) and saying something to me that I can not remember for the life of me. LOL... So my 32 year old college-educated cum laude brain was then reduced to a bouncy, nervous, trying to play it cool bucket of mush!

Even growing up in New York City - where, if you're from the "ghetto" then you *must* listen to hip hop (which I do and love) or you are ridiculed relentlessly - I still played their music whenever I felt compelled. And I still loved it. When I heard about their reunion, I smiled brightly and played a medley of their songs off of my iPod playlist all day long. Without a care in the world, I reminisced about the times that were...and dreamed of times to come. I am not embarrassed at all to tell all my friends about my adventures and stories about them. I am proud. And when they laugh? I smile. These are my memories, my moments, my experiences being a New Kids on the Block fan. And I wouldn't change it for the world...

Thank you to Joe, Jordan, Jonathan, Donnie, and Danny for coming back - for allowing us all to relive our youth, relive the happy memories, the innocent times, and the fun of it all.

I *heart* NKOTB