A Little Bit of Press I Forgot to Mention

For the regular readers of the blog, this is all old news. For everyone else, here's a place the succinctly sums up everything I've been up to on the creative side:

http://www.salsation.com/bochinchera-zine/2006-06-01.html

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Thanks,
Nelson

Currently reading : Heir to the Empire (Star Wars: The Thrawn Trilogy, Vol. 1) By Timothy Zahn Release date: By 01 May, 1992

Thank you J.B.!

If you clicked on the link thinking I was going to serenade an alcoholic beverage, you don't know me at all!

Actually, I am thanking my man Jason Bell, a fellow trumpeteer who introduced me to a band that I hated with a passion back in the day...

See, my freshman year of high school was full of a lot of experiences like girls...cars...band camp...girls...marching...girls...and the occasionaly rap vs. rock debate I had with everybody. In the 8th grade, I kinda made a name for myself for being a self-proclaimed musical prodigy (first chair trumpet player...DIG IT!) and I was heavily into rap thanks to Young M.C.'s Stone Cold Rhymin' debut. I was destined to be a great rapper at the time in my mind and made sure I was on top of the scene. The scene to me, of course, consisted of very old school rappers, unpopular or unheard of records, and basically everyone not on Yo MTV Raps! thanks to my parents subjugating me to an adolescent life of terrestial television. Since I knew everything there was to know at that age, I knew rap (not hip-hop) was the best musical art form in the world! Until one day...

At lunch time, freshmen were not allowed to go off-campus to grab a meal unlike everyone else (I still to this day don't know what made parents/faculty think that being a year older as a sophmore would give me a bigger sense of responsibility to not act a fool once off campus...many a mailbox suffered cruel deaths thanks to sophmores getting their delinquency rocks off during lunch). However, one upper-classman, hooked me and another freshman up with a ride to the mecca of all fast food - McDonalds! We all piled into his Grand Cherokee, kept our heads down as he drove off campus, and celebrated wildly as he drove around at our short-lived freedom. The coolest thing about J was that he had a CD player in his car which at the time was REALLY cool. In the deck he had a wildly known record known as Blood Sugar Sex Magik playing. I didn't know who the artist was but I was totally digging the rapping the guy was doing and the basslines. We listened to half the record and I kept in mind how good the record sounded to me. The production was impeccable and the sound was tight. I was mortified to find out this sonic masterpiece was by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; the same band that all the jocks, preppies, and utter assholes I knew at school were listening to was that same one I was bobbing my head to in the car! At that moment, my horizons opened up a little bit larger.

The reason I thought of all of this was because I was rolling in the MoMo (Murano) and a song from BSSM came on and I rocked out to it reminiscing about old times. So, thanks J for hooking me up with the Chili Peppers and inadvertantly turning me onto a style of music I would grow to play and love.

Currently listening : Blood Sugar Sex Magik By Red Hot Chili Peppers Release date: By 24 September, 1991

All of My Friends With Their Hands in the Air Screamin' "Party of Here! Party Over There!"

Have you ever been to a party where you wonder "What the heck were they thinkin'? This party needs some EMTs cuz it's dead!" Well, the party we threw this weekend had a built-in dojo cuz it's was totally kickin'!

We threw our Chicago-based wedding reception where we invited 100 guests of which each could've invited one other person for a total of 200 people. I estimate about 60-70 showed up throughout the night. We had set up a projector with various slideshows showing both the serious and very non-serious side of what went down in Cancun along with the professional wedding video. People laughed, smiled, and happily cried watching the videos/pictures. We also had a DJ bumpin' the tunes while interspersing the occasional karoake hit performed by various talented folks. The Nielsen girls took the stage and took the party by storm with their great voices while yours truly got the party goin' by bustin' a move a la Young MC with a little heart and soul via my man Huey Lewis. The food kept being rolled out and people snatched up thir favorite pieces of chicken, shrimp, cheese, pretzles, sweets, and who knows what else they served. It was great seeing people out of their element dancing to "Don't Stop Till Ya Get Enough". I never thought I would see IBMers move so quickly to the dance floor!

This party went well beyond our expectations (righteously so)! Thanks to everyone who came out and had a good time. I especially thank those that gave us a little somethin' somethin' to add to the house/bank account ;-)

Currently listening : And in This Corner... By DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince Release date: By 17 October, 1989

Bad To Good In The Ring of Just One Phone Call

I was having a trying day yesterday. Had a person that decided that we, due to their absence on previous meetings, had the duty and will to fill them in on everything we've spoken on in the last few weeks, which really ticked me off. I asked myself, "Man, didn't you set your Meeting Tivo? This is all old news!" I also had the Silent Lurker on the call. They're the type of person that joins a call unnanounced and listens in to capture intelligence to promote some secret, global agenda. Well, Lurker messed up and became audible due to a misunderstanding of what we were trying to accomplish. Damage controls were put into place to calm everyone down and restate the goal of our meetings.

I admit that my anger was completely my issue and I chose to hold onto that anger instead of seeing it for what it was. I was afraid that I wasn't going to do a "good" job of getting through the meeting, and that others were trying to steal my thunder/circumvent me on a task I had to take care of. So, I see it for what it was now and learned from it. But yet, I was in a bad mood.

Well, that changed after I received a callback from one of my recent auditions. I got offered two parts in an up and coming play! Wowzers! I felt my ego and spirits rise up quickly. I was like, "Hey, things are pretty good!"

Things were always good but I made them seem worse than they really were. Goes to show how things in this cosm we call life are completely up to us to create. I created both a bad day and a good day for myself. I think I'll stick to manifesting the good days cuz it feels good; feels even better when I get offered roles in something I love to do

The Global Unifer

Most people who know me well know that I'm not much into sports. The only Chicago-based team I like is the MLS favorites the Chicago Fire. My affinity for soccer (or should I say futbol ) stems from a few places such as my heritage, the simplicity of the game, or the fact I played it for 3 years as a kid. Therefore, every 4 years is a lot of fun for me because I get to live out the life a sports fan for 3 weeks and talk a lot of smack just like most guys do after their team loses against somebody.

This year has been more fun because I deal with a lot of Europeans at work. There's nothing cooler than getting into a meeting and trading our thoughts on the World Cup for the first 15-20 minutes! That's why we're the biggest computer company in the world! Globalization in all aspects. I love defending the US team against it's European critics on these calls:

"Ehhhhh....zeh Amerikahn team....eeehhhhhhhhh....zay are not gon' to ween because ehhhhhhhh....sock-uh eez not az popoolah az eet eez in Europe...and zeh team needs more ehhhhhhhhhh....time to get more experiance.....zat is wut I zink."

Calls go so much more smoothly after hashing out the effects of temperature on the ball after being kicked 2000 times. Very cool. Glad we can all come together on something at least once every 4 years.

Currently listening : Soccer Hits By Groove Machine Release date: By 24 February, 2006