[blessings & props to oli on his engagement with theresa]
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as of late, a whirlwind of activity has been happening around me. some friends have left university some have decided to take time off school, some have finished skool and found great careers and some are still looking for their lucky break. meanwhile, others such as my cousin (the same age as me), have started their own families, have a kid and their own home. elsewhere, i have friends getting engaged and/or married. as for me, we'll talk marriage some other time - priority for me is finishing school, finding a career that i can say i truly dont have a problem getting up in the morning to do, and actually working for a few years in that career. after i've saved up some cabbage & graduated, but not before i travel, all of these things will fall into place for me...there's really no rush on my part...or at least i tell myself so.

this is not me trying to be deep or philosophical and corny; this is my reality.

__________

fear not of man



today is the mos def concert on harbourfront. i can hardly contain myself here. what should i wear? what lyrics should i review? how much cash should i pack? where are all my clean socks?

"The deadly ritual seems immersed, in the perverse
Full of short attention spans, short tempers, and short skirts
Long barrel automatics released in short bursts
The length of black life is treated with short worth
Get yours first, them other niggaz secondary
That type of illin that be fillin up the cemetary"
- thieves in the night

"You can laugh and criticize Michael Jackson if you wanna
Woody Allen, molested and married his step-daughter
Same press kicking dirt on Michael's name
Show Woody and Soon-Yi at the playoff game, holding hands
Sit back and just bug, think about that
Would he get that type of dap if his name was Woody Black?"
- mr. nigga

"I move in, and y'all must move on
'Cause I move to strong
And I know what my feet move for
Made it go without a brand new car
Made it fresh without a brand new song
And give a fuck about what brand you are
I'm concerned what type of man you are
What your principles and standards are
You understand me y'all
Be good to your family y'all
No matter where your families are
'Cause everybody needs family y'all
Raise a hand, you understand me y'all
Everybody needs family y'all
Be good to your families dog
Understand, no matter where your families are
Everybody needs family dog
Raise a hand, you understand me pa
Thats what it is...thats my man"
- sunshine

"brooklyn, stand up!"

briefly:

saturday night was good but a sad performance on our part

sunday was relaxing with the family and pops

monday was gold

today was leisure
(congrats to rocks on graduating today)

tomorrow will be long

i can't wait for thursday

friday, who knows?

then came the weekend again.

we got this new mp3 player in the store about a month ago. previously, we were utilizing the satellite radio. why they took it out, i'll never know. maybe the playlists were too reptitive. maybe mexx wants particular music for their store so they ship us particular cds playing particular songs that mexx clientele should be particularly listening to.

the cds arent that bad..but of course, i know i can do better.
here's my unofficial playlist.

a playlist for grown folks

"alright" jamiroquai
"truth" dwele
"the sweetest thing" lauryn hill
"you give me something" jamiroquai
"after party" koffee brown
"stay this way (heavy remix)" the brand new heavies
"twenty questions" beastie boys
"the truth" moloko & j-live
"breakdown (handsome boy remix)" jack johnson
"i've been thinking" cat power
"sing it back" moloko
"short skirt, long jacket" cake
"the new pollution" beck
"it gets me going" spymob
"run to the sun" n.e.r.d.
"sitting around keeping score" spymob
"you know what's up" donnell jones feat. left eye
"prototype" outkast
"faithful" common feat. bilal & john legend
"lady" d'angelo
"golden" jill scott
"no such thing" john mayer
"truth" dwele
"fill me in" craig david
"tell me" groove theory
"sumthin' sumthin'" maxwell
"groove thang" zhane
"by your side (neptunes remix)" sade
"digital love" daft punk
"cosmic girl" jamiroquai
"loungin'" l.l. cool j feat. total
"you should be here" raphael saadiq feat. d'angelo
"travelling without moving" jamiroquai
"i wanna dance tonight" lucy pearl
"i used to love you" john legend
"just friends" musiq
"officially missing you (remix)" tamia feat. talib kweli
"newness" musiq
"4ever" lil' mo

by the way..that was a mighty great weekend!

[harajuku like wha?]
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just a reminder...

"Not strong, only aggressive, cause the power ain't directed
That's why, we are subjected to the will of the oppressive
Not free, we only licensed
Not live, we just excitin
Cause the captors.. own the masters.. to what we writin
Not compassionate, only polite, we well trained
Our sincerity's rehearsed in stage, it's just a game
Not good, but well behaved cause the ca-me-ra survey
most of the things that we think, do, or say
We chasin after death just to call ourselves brave
But everyday, next man meet with the grave
I give a damn if any fam' recall my legacy
I'm tryin to live life in the sight of God's memory"
-thieves in the night [mos def]

[harbourfront: this thursday]


of the big news.

holy shit..this is one of the best pay cheques ive received in a minute. i guess all this laziness pays off..even when im not working, im working. big ups to all my customers chose not to return shit and fuck up my bonus pay off for last month.

ted dibiase - the million dollar man
knows what im talkin' bout

"im rich, biotch!"
drinks on me, motherfuckers.

__________

hip hop.

you've been warned: once i get my spindle today of cds..im gonna put together my several volumes of 90s hip hop.

ive been wanting to do this for a while but i ran out of cds. eventually, as time passed, the whole idea just vanished from my mind. but like the prodigal son, it's back. my mind was refreshed when this fool named mark ani (lover of that loser marianne who reads this) emailed me/asked me to give him a playlist of old skool hip hop joints. although for awhile, ididnt wanna refer to 90s hip hop as "old skool" per se, im slowly accepting the fact that that era was and is.."old skool" as we are, just the same. thanks mark. although im not forwarding you your requested list just yet, i am working on my own anthology. thanks big guy. im sucha [fill in your own jay insulting term here].

this is not hip hop

there's a little bit more to it...
i swear.

like i said...you've been warned.

yea right...

i dont give a shit what anyone says - it's almost physically impossible to run a 9.78s 100m dash.

on top of that, you don't need my ethics reader to know that this shit is wrong.
fucking cheaters.

but who am i to judge? like ive been saying..if people are gonna cheat, then make a special olympics where everyone who chooses to cheat & competes against one another.

dont get me started on anti-doping commissions and practices because in all honesty, no matter how much they say theyre against doping, the IOC (international olympic committee) could do a lot more to crack down on this issue.

why they dont, you ask? because sport is big business. if you take away doped up athletes who smash the last record time of the world, then you take away viewers and tv ratings. you take away the ratings, you take away the sponserships and ads. you take away the ads, you take away revenue.


it's not a science, folks.

just form the doping olympic committee and let athletes who want to use drugs and other aids of cheating go against one another. eventually, this sort of competition can then evolve into something along the lines of human vs machine or human vs water buffalo. something like that.

id watch some dude sprint against a chevy..who wouldnt? as long as your honest about it.

so i followed suit and joined this little shitbox called friendster about a month ago. look me up under the handle "jay de los Reyes" (accept no substitutes). anyhow, other than me feeling this online community is nothing more than an online yearbook where people toot your horn and testify for you concerning everything from how big your bra size is to saving an old lady from a burning building,i felt i had to use this as an outlet to illustrate myself to the world. where my asianavenue page was previously my voice to the world, my friendster blog is a showcase of my testicular fortitude towards the world.

and i ask...what way to illustrate myself and expand on my "about me" section other than through the use of hip hop lyrics?

what im trying to say is, one way of talking about myself is bragging. hip hop is an artform; really an attitude; a swagger; a way for writers & poets to strut their stuff. through my friendster blog, im gonna catalogue every dope lyric that i know and love. mind you, each and every one of these dope lyrics are free for you and yours to use - spoken to self in your head/in front of the mirror/in front of your friends/while making love to your ol' lady/cruising in your maserati/writing an exam - with or without headphones.


here's a taste:

~THE FIRST POST***
this is the section of my friendster account where, through the use of hip hop'S ILLEST lines (both old and new skool), my about me section is further explained.

it's all swagger really.

"Dave cut the record down to the bone
And now they got me rockin on the microphone
And then we talkin autograph, and here's the laugh
Champagne, caviar, and bubble bath
But see ahh, ah that's the life, ah that I lead
And you sucker MC's is who I please
So take that and move back catch a heart attack
Because there's nothin in the world, that [jay]'ll ever lack...

You five dollar boy and I'm a million dollar man
Youse a sucker MC, and you're my fan
You try to bite lines, but rhymes are mine
Youse a sucker MC in a pair of Calvin Klein
Comin from the wackest, part of town
Tryin to rap up but you can't get down
You don't even know your english, your verb or noun
You're just a sucker MC you sad face clown...

I dress to kill, I love the style
I'm an MC you know who's versatile
Say I got good credit in your regards
Got my name not numbers on my credit cards"
- run dmc

now that's one of the dopest songs out there. did you catch how they mentioned the 'lifestyle that theyre living'? back in the days, champagne, cavier and bubble baths...THOSE WERE THE SHIT. those things were on the donald trump tip back then and still are. if you aint rockin' it with some hunnies, some champagne, some cavier, and some bubble bath..well then, youre just a sucka mc, AND ALL YOU SUCKAS AIN'T ME.

and dont even get me started with the "name not numbers" on the credit card.
that's def.

run dmc


they don't call it bragging if you can back it up.
in my case however, im a real ham. checka-checkit out.

inside joke:

C-cuuuuuuuup!
guys gays night out is always the bomb.


[ice-t the o.g.
"original gangsta"]

what's been up you might ask?
same 'ol same 'ol. just rollin' with the homies; shooting the shit and straight up g-ridin' till we die, ya heard? in other words..nothing much.

wonderland was the shit...till my man mark got robbed. damn thieves..thieves with their decoy babies. i dont care if youre a baby's momma...youse a thief!
other than that, summer's great...summer's hot...

and finally, big shout outs to my boys rj and oli (although he'll never read this..but just in case...for future references) on graduating later on today.

destination graduation.
there, you now have a degree....so now what?

where all my york jiggas & jiggarettes at?

[this update was way too ghetto stoopified for its own good. trust.]

after a week of having the 8th booked off, the day (before) is finally here. it's really been nothing but anticipation as i've been waiting for our plans to visit canada's wonderland this summer!

for years (3 exactly), we've been saying that we're gonna go; that we should go; that we want to go. unfortunately, those plans, hopes and dreams never fell through.
however, this wednesday, finally, after years and endless nights of insomnia - just thinking about the day that i'd return to this glorious, money-making, high-priced, too-packed to ride anything, wallet-gouging experience that my country calls canada's wonderland.

it's not so much the enjoyment of the fresh open air, or the funnel cake that gets me going; rather, its the thrill of the rides. the last time i went, i remember it vividly: it was that particular summer when people were getting thrown off the spinning swings, having their roller-coaster harnesses disengage, a slew of mechanical failures and young gang-bangers stabbing eachother to mention just a few. this is what i wait for..the possibility of something going terribly wrong, like taking a crap in the washroom only to realize after that someone pissed on the toilet paper, but overcoming it (i.e. using your 5 dollar bill).

this is the thrilling environment that i've been longing for over the past 3 summers.
i'll say it again, i can hardly wait.

if you can't hardly wait either, in the overzealous words of stone cold steve austin, give me a
hell yeah!

p.s. we broke..the will is weak in our family.
i am happy to announce that the a/c is now on in this filipino household. f'shizzle. pass my parka, please.

__________

our home and native land
there was some big native dude with messed up teeth on the subway today. when i say native, i mean the aboriginal kind, or as white people would say "feather, not red dot indian".

anyhow, i was on the subway, and it was packed. boy was it packed. people were standing; there were no seats; hands were holding overhead rails and armpits were in faces. anyhow, this mid 30s chinese guy moves away from the native guy who's near the door. he moved not because he's a big western movie fan and despises natives, but because it was just too crowded by the door. my headphones were on but i could hear the loudest of the loud shouts coming from the native guy. i guess he got offended by the chinese guy walking away from him..well, the offended thing and he probably fell of his rocker, yanno, he was a little nuts. so the native guy starts getting agitated for no apparent reason at all. he continues to shout displaying his ugly teeth to me and other passengers. i gotta say, this man had a set of teeth that looked like he ate bricks for breakfast, 'know what im saying?

after the boiling point of this crazy native's fury began to rise in temperature, he shouted something like "there are too many of you chinese people here in canada...blah blah blah..[cue end of sentence and finish with a loud screaming] fuck you!". it was all just so nuts. of course, the chinese dude knew not to get into it with this big native, not because he was big but because he obviously didnt have all his marbles in his bag. in the meantime, the train emptied out and i was standing across from the native.

for a minute there, i thought he was gonna think i was chinese or some shit. then i remembered i have these big ass gwalo eyes and this dark ass mexican-like dermis. nonetheless, i walked away in fear that the big native would grab me, pull down my pants, pull my plonker..only before proceeding to take out his big stone hatchet and cut me up into small pieces as the rest of the passengers looked on.

that was my main fear, and that's why i moved down the train and away from hell's fury. this whole ordeal for a minute made me second think my choice to one day go to a reserve and help out the native kids..i said for a minute i second thought that. then my morality came in and i realized that not all natives there are good and bad natives just like there are good and bad whites and asians and blacks and jews and dogs and giraffes and fungi.

now this would be a politically correct (p.c.)
"native indian"

"i'll cap your ass from bombay to the plains, motherfucker."

that my friends, is my crazy native story.

if i sweat this much, then that must be the case.

well not as of late, but the other day, yes, this was the case. for a large chunk of may and all of april, fellow southern ontarians who share the effects of my climate, this hot, sunny & humid climate, have been complaining about the extended cold and cloudy spring.

finally the summer has hit us. just the other day, like years of the past, i remember just sitting right here in front of my computer - typing...merely typing, let it be known and all of a sudden i started to break a sweat. that's the type of mug condition that i was under. ever wake up and youre just sweating? makes you wonder what the hell kind of nightmares youre having; are you in some kind of ironman triathalon in the tropics? did someone shive a spit through your ass and out of your mouth and start roasting you like the suckling, tasty pig that you are? and why do i go to bed with a tshirt on, only to find myself shirtless in the morning and my shirt on the floor across the room? was it me? or did some sick old perverted group of raping gnomes come through my open window? whatever the case, its heating up in my hood and we're still not busting out the a/c in my house. is it a filipino think to save a little on the gas bill?..maybe. but are we not designed for this hot, wet air as thick as pudding? if that's the case and we're going back to our roots, then i guess my family should just start eating sweet potatoes with rice out of a coconut shell. that would be "going back" to the real conditions.

sweat is funky

so is james brown.
therefore james brown must be sweat.

++canada's wonderland on wednesday.
it better not rain.
++sex with a japanese geisha
daily
++chinese buffet for jps grad
saturday


out.

[so...how's your girl?]
Posted by Hello

to the left is the handsome face of commissioned retail.

first things first, did you know that my current job blows harder than an alterboy sometimes?

sure the pay is good. selling shit on comission has it's benefits and bonuses but if youre not careful, itll give you the teeth of a piranha, the eye of a tiger and the twisted tongue of satan. in other words, you'll look and feel like youve been eating garlic and liverwurst sandwiches, peppered with a 76 year old woman's pubes for a living.

coming into this job i said to myself "hey, i'll do my best to help the customer. not only will i get them what the want and need, but i'll take my customer service that extra yard and go above and beyond (a common catch-phrase used in the retail industry)". shoot, when i first started half a year ago, i was ready to clip the customer's toenails and clean the lint out of their belly buttons with my tongue. since then, im glad to say that i just dont give a flying fuck anymore. it ain't fun. it's actually a job now. it's work; a common underlying theme that many of my past part time and temporary jobs have taught me.

this is especially the case in the mall where i work at. you see, when you deal with rich, white, professional, well-to-do people, they expect you to do everything for them. this is not the case all of the time but it is the case 95% of the time. if the size isnt available in the store, they want you to grab some textiles & fasteners and actually tailor the shit rite there in front of them. if that doesnt work, theyre gonna want you to get the nearest rusty tin can lid and skin yourself. from there, you can shower the customer the latest fashions from your own signature line of human pelts they can enjoy.

sometimes, customers claim they can fit into smaller sizes than they would like to believe. in reference to that, the only thing i can say is "im sorry, but if you think your fat ass can fit into a size 4, you were probably reading the labels wrong in the past. your size 4 of the past is probably a size 4 of the past, literally. your size was a size 4 when milk costed a nickel and chinese girls bound their feet - that's when a size 4 was a size 4 of that size". newsflash: if you cant fit into our clothes, im sorry to break it to you..but your fat. youre too fat for our clothes. im tired of using the "it's a european tailoring and fit" excuse; that's fucking bogus - your rich, stuck up ass is a fat rich and stuck up ass! sorry to break it to you but youre not only fat in europe, youre fat in antarctica; youre fat in australia; south america etc. etc...shit..dont even get me started on how they would view you in africa!

it's unanimous

[NATO, the commonwealth, the UN, you name it, they all agree...youre fat]

and my coworkers; the new co-workers and some of the old ones. back to working on commission - since when was it impossible for all of us to get our bonuses at the end of the month? motherfuckers act like sharks - circling the store - ready to devour the newest customer to walk through the front door. motherfuckers keep on printing out stat sheets displaying how many sales they've sold in the last hour or throughout the day or even compared to other co-workers. me, personally, i never look at this shit, my philosophy is: if the customer is gonna buy shit, theyre gonna buy shit; i aint ready to lie and it's definitely not my job to convince anyone out there to buy anything they dont already like themselves - im not a politician or even a lawyer. yeah, true, im a salesmen, but fuck that moniker. that doesnt mean i drop my principles to sell some shitty fabrics - that just aint my style. this approach seems to work too, considering that im the 2nd best seller in the store of 20+ employees.

a word to anyone selling anything on commission, whether it be pig's feet or cars, look at yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and eat a big warm bowl of cat shit with a knit needle - that's exactly what you deserve you rat bastards. believe me, i know first hand...or at least i try not to.

my morals are too strongly held, my energy is a positive one and my personality is too sparkling to be wasted on all of this.
this shall be my last retail job ever, of all time.

in the meantime, however, i still gotta pay my bills and eat.

kinesiologist for hire.
who wants in?

this includes all franchised and privately owned store bought items from any restaurant dishing out the deadliest of the deep fried or the cheesiest of the rawhide. this all becomes self-assuring as i just read an article along the lines of this here.

but why make that challenge designated just for summer?
shouldnt it be a life-long thing? probably not..but shouldnt it be?
no, not through my eyes; not really.


[well it ain't the incredible hulk]


[the hulk actually eats his vegetables. green dermis says it all]


all things in moderation.
i wanna see the new food guide we're building on. i only heard about it in school, i wanna see this. i can hardly wait to observe serving sizes and RDA values.

-ramblings from a physical educator

[my homie blineguy's biggest art piece to date]
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a few weeks a go, my posse and i went downtown to check out mr rj's (bka as blineguy@anydomainYOUcanThinkOf.com) first real showcase of his work.

here are the pics. yall be clever little children and check those out now, will ya?