Baltimore and clubbing

I read an article today on The Baltimore Sun that was interviewing Jon Han, who is a promoter of a megaclub here in Baltimore named Palma. This guy is completely arrogant and delusional and believes that he will have no issue succeeding in this town. For example:

What's Palma's biggest challenge?

There's no challenge for us. We just do what we do best on a daily basis. We bring high-end DJs, and people travel to Baltimore. No one else does it here. I have no competition - no challenge. ... Everybody went against it, and I made it happen, and I did it and that makes me special. That makes me want to prove that the Baltimore crowd is a really good crowd - not what people from D.C. think. ... But I proved all these people wrong just on the grand-opening day. And I'm going to continue to prove them wrong.

Now this guy is full of shit. Here is my comment on this article:

I had some friends who went or tried to go to Palma on opening night and the reviews were not glowing. I had some hope that a mega club would succeed, but at this point and after reading this interview I have some doubts.

When it comes to clubs, Baltimore is boring whether or not you go to a place serving cheap drinks or to a location where a bunch of plastic people pretend to be upscale and rich and just want to be seen. Everybody wants to hear the same crap you hear on the radio or they want to go to a location where there are a lot of "pretty" people. There is no in between and there is no quality in this town.

There was some quality in this town, and that was when Mosaic was open before the grand renovation that got rid of the entire staff that made the venue what it was. In addition to Sonar and the Paradox, Mosaic was bringing in well-known US and international DJ talent for quite some time. Not only that, but at the time it was a classy place that everyone was welcome to be a part of due to its lack of pretentiousness.

I am beginning to see this same attitude in a lot of clubs that are opening up, and this article confirms this. This kind of attitude may get people into the clubs in DC (I have DJ'ed there and it does), but trust me it will not work in Baltimore. If you want to succeed in this city, check your attitude.

People in Baltimore will never, ever, go to a venue where they feel like they have to pretend to be rich and upscale and/or they just won't go at all. People can tell whether or not a place is cool and chill or if it is stuck up. Baltimore does not do stuck up here. When people go out they want to party and have a good time, not stress out about how they look or how they act.

This is not to say that people won't try to look good when they go out, but attitude is everything.

I still have to hold judgment until I can get there myself, but I doubt that I will have a good time, based on what my close friends have told me.

This is what I have been saying for a long time now.

Via Huffington Post:

When Barack Obama started running for president, he was widely described as arrogant for daring to take on the Clintons after just two years in the Senate, despite the fact that polling at the time showed him to be the only threat to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

Eighteen-months later, we are told by the McCain campaign and its traditional media parrots that Obama is at risk of looking "presumptuous" for his recent trip abroad, even as he has registered a small but significant bounce in the polls upon his return, presumably for doing what most of us expect of a presidential candidate.

The man who slayed Democratic royalty, who has raised more money than any political campaign in US history, drawn record-breaking crowds in the US and abroad, who has been ahead of John McCain since widespread general election polling began four months ago, this man is presumptuous for thinking he has a good shot at becoming president and should therefore get to know his potential counterparts and visit the sites of US military activity?

Most candidates Obama's age will be charged sooner or later with youthful conceit for taking on their elders, no matter how guilty those elders are of mismanaging the country. It happened to some extent to Bill Clinton, and surely to others before him. However, it is hard not to see in the ongoing attitude towards this presidential frontrunner, just three months before the election, something more uncomfortable that is not simply a matter of age, but one of race.

Throughout the primary there was a growing sense of disbelief in the Clinton camp that this young'un (older than Bill was in 1991 when he started running, mind you) really thought he had a shot at this. Bill, in particular, showed little patience for Obama's "fairy tale" campaign, eventually going ballistic because, in his own version of "some of my best friends are," he did not understand that even he, whose office is in Harlem, may be condescending towards African-Americans, and towards this African-American in particular. Perhaps more perniciously, some long-time African-American political and business leaders joined in with some of the worst stereotyping of the campaign, seemingly upset at the upstart who dared to go where most of them had not.

Now McCain is recycling some version of this superciliousness, heavily aided by a traditional media still so easily scared into thinking it is not tough enough on Obama. McCain can hardly hide his rage at this uppity kid who thinks he can hobnob with world leaders just as he does -- who thinks he has more judgment than a septuagenerian war-mongering former prisoner of war. And who sees no reason to wait his turn when barely 1 in 10 Americans think the country is on the right track, thanks to his elders' enlightened leadership. In a weird echo of the Clinton attacks, McCain smirks his way through one sarcastic comment after another, his face twisted in hatred and disbelief. Not only is Obama "presumptuous," he also "doesn't understand." It is never clear what Obama doesn't understand since he actually has not gotten his facts or, so far, his analysis wrong, as opposed to McCain whose errors in fact and in judgment are so numerous as to make one wonder where he has been for the past 20 years (poring over Cold War era reports on Czechoslovakia? Hanging out at the Iraq-Pakistan border? Plotting to bomb-bomb-bomb bomb-bomb Iran?). McCain is the most arrogant of Senators (not a light charge), yet even by his standards the tone he adopts towards Obama is so densely patronizing that here too it is hard to dismiss it as purely a matter of age gap. McCain's joke of an economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, is now also laying it on thick: she is glad that Obama is consulting with experts. This from the woman who nearly ran a Fortune 100 company into the ground and whose candidate knows so little about economic issues after three decades in Congress that Fiorina is reduced to repeating that McCain "has been understanding [economic issues] for months."

That Obama is actually able to listen to facts, absorb them and analyze them should be a good thing. We assume that those skills came in handy throughout his life, not least at Harvard, where he graduated near top of his law school class. This, of course, now makes him an elitist, as he would not be expected by the old DC guard to possess any such competence (charisma perhaps, analytical ability no.) Both McCain (894th out of 899 at Annapolis) and George W. Bush revel in their under-achieving school days, as if this made these scions of hyper-privilege any closer to real people. This tactic clearly succeeded well enough for Bush to be elected president twice, and McCain to be nominated once. But there is a sense that American voters may not be taken in again and that they may actually enjoy as president someone who isn't an inbred moron or a senile fratboy.

Obama's partner in elitism, his wife Michelle, is in extreme tongue-biting mode. This is a shame, but it is inevitable, as she too is under the kind of scrutiny that would make Cindy McCain's face melt back into some approximation of reality. It is widely understood that Obama is more deserving of close examination than McCain because she is more actively involved in her husband's campaign than Cindy is. This of course is a lie: McCain has campaigned extensively for her husband and, were it not for her family fortune and her private jet, he wouldn't even have come close to being nominated. The truth is that Obama is expected to play a certain role: strong, angry, overbearing, and every one of her statements is demeaningly parsed in that light. If every word uttered by McCain were analyzed and reported to fit the stereotype of the rich, spoilt, husband-stealing white woman that she is, all would be fair. But instead, we get adoring glances, little examination of her actual role and an occasional hiccup about Michelle Obama's lack of patriotism.

What angers John McCain and bemuses many traditional observers is how unflappable Barack Obama remains in public, no matter how condescending the attacks. There is little doubt that the thick skin he grew over decades came in handy as he started to run for president. The past 18 months surely were not the first time Obama was baited for being black, for being white, for being Muslim, or for not being from "here," and it must be fascinating, although not unexpected, for him to see these patronizing attitudes resurface at this stage of his life. For the rest of us, what is fascinating is to witness how these old-school mindsets are backfiring on those who hold them, making them look less wise, more prejudiced, less fit to lead and altogether completely unappealing. And to witness that in America in 2008, it is perhaps not a bad thing not to know your place.

I have been saying for a while that it is time for the younger generation to lead this nation in a way that will benefit future generations because (unfortunately) I do not believe that older Americans care about our future. They have already screwed up our futures to the point that we have a harder time succeeding in this world. I do not mean to say that all of our elders think this way, but when I hear them talk, and hear how ignorant they are, I tend to think that maybe they need to be voted out in order for any real change to occur in this nation.

Quick Shit

Saw "The Dark Knight" last night on IMAX. I tell you what that is one of the best films that I have ever seen. I highly recommend that you go and see it in the theaters, but it is about 2.5 hours long. Heath Ledger does deserve an Oscar nomination for his performance as it is very memorable.

I gambled $40 of my father's money and returned with 1 cent. I should have stopped when I hit $80.

The girl who I am dating is in Chicago. I don't get to see her until maybe Friday. I already miss her.

Got to go back to work tomorrow, day shift (meaning that I wake up at 4:30 am). I am really starting to get tired of this 4 day on - 2 day off schedule since we are really only supposed to work 3 on 3 off to get good rest (this is because I work 12 hour days). It is really starting to wear me out.

If you did anything cool this weekend, let me know! Peace!

Rants and Raves

So while at work overnight, I saw a political ad numerous times from McCain that blames not the person in charge in this country, not speculators, but Obama for the rise in the cost of gasoline without any explanation. It is completely ridiculous and makes John McCain look like an utter and complete dumbass. Here is the ad if you want to waste your time and get pissed, or if you actualy support this old fool, masturbate to it.



This isn't the only dumb thing by McCain and he has been doing a lot of whining since Obama is overseas getting all of the attention. If you go to Huffington Post, you can find numerous stories of his screw ups and his whining.

Tomorrow is actually a good day for me once I get home from work. I get to see a girl I am dating. I saw her last Saturday so it has been almost a week, but since I work horrible hours, I have to see her whenever I can. Then I go visit my Dad and we are going to see "The Dark Knight" on IMAX in Harrisburg. Then I come back because I work Sunday morning. Once I get back I will write up what I think about the movie, even though I hear that it is really good.

Time for bed, but I just need to leave you with this to brighten up your day. That is of course if anyone reads this thing.

RIP DJ K-Swift

Maybe some of you are aware that a popular Baltimore DJ died yesterday. DJ K-Swift is one of the people that I looked up to when I decided that I was going to DJ. I always watched her sets and listened to her mixtapes and hands down she is the best DJ in the region.

I didn't say best female DJ or even that she was. She is the best DJ in the region period and that will never change at all. We in Baltimore are really missing her, but we realize that the party has to continue because that i what she would want. So in her honor, this video is up for her today.

Get your club on somewhere and pay your respects.

Back to the Gym

Work has been killing me and I have not worked out in a long time. We can count that time in months. I am starting to see the effects of sitting on my ass for 12 hours, going home to catch some sleep, then going back to work and really not getting any time to do anything during the week that is healthy or active.

So in about ten minutes I am about to go back to gym and try to get that feeling back. I love feeling strong, but now my job has me feeling weak, and really, my body shape is starting to look like my Dad's and that is just not cool with me.

Gotta go and get my sexy back now.

My First Blog Entry

So here I am, deciding to get into the world of blogging. I really don't know why I am doing this. It could be to pass the time, just get some things off my chest, or just to whine and bitch.

Expect a lot of whining and bitching.

So some things about me:

I am a satellite engineer at NASA who really wishes he could be a DJ and make a living that way. For now though, I just settle with the once per month gig that I get since I am a newbie to this game.

I work longs hours and don't get much time off, hence the bitching and whining.

Currently dating someone who is really cool and I like her a lot. In terms of the bitching and whining, that is off limits for me, especially because there is nothing to whine or bitch about in that regards.

I am a Democrat and I support Barack Obama. I am against the war in Iraq, and I think all of that money being spent over there can be better spent here. I also think that we need to do a lot better in cleaning up our environment, using alternative sources of energy, rely more on science rahter than religion to make our decisions, and we need to take better care of our people, which we have failed at miserably.

I love the nightlife. I like to boogie. Because of this, the DJ booth is my wife and the dancefloor is my mistress. You will hear a lot about Baltimore nightlife from me.

I'm hot right now and have to go to work tonight.

Yeah this is pretty lame for a first posting but if the 2 of you that come by here read this, I want you to get an idea of what I am all about.

I promise later posts will be much better. Peace.