Jon Jon Briones – one of my all-time favorite actors. Not sure how he didn’t receive any accolades for his role in Versace, but he should be celebrated. So thank you for all your creative contributions, Jon Jon.
Isa Briones – congratulations on everything. You deserve it all and you deserve more roles.
“In the hours just before Martial Law was officially announced on the evening of September 23, 1972, the Camp Crame Gymnasium became the site where the first hundred or so political prisoners – those caught from a list of about 400 journalists, educators, politicians, and others on a list of “National List of Target Personalities” who were labeled “subversives” because they had openly criticized Ferdinand Marcos – were brought before they were moved to other facilities such as Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija or the various detention centers in Fort Bonifacio.”
— Wikipedia
I will forever remember — for those who lived through it and died because of it — what the Marcos regime did to the Philippines.
It’s days like these — when murders have become fully sanctioned and sponsored — that call for the dutch angle.
The other day, life brought me to my original stomping grounds of Carson, California, 90745 if you nasty. Hungry, I took my grumbling stomach to Tita Celia’s for a plate of tapa and eggs. We used to live right across the street from their original location. Saw that they were selling pickled mangoes so I had to pick those up. Then I finally paid a visit to Teofilo Coffee where they only use harvested beans from the Philippines. I ordered a double shot iced americano for a proper introduction to my ancestral kape. It was all perfect for the soul.
Carson, I thought I knew you.
Welcome to the rotation.
By William Butler Yeats
It’s beautiful. Read it aloud — but only at a whisper.
What if the future you came back in time and told you that what you’re doing is exactly how you should do it, and that what you’re creating is exactly how you should create it to get to the place you want to go?
Throw away your doubts and keep moving forward.
“Define who you are and what you are, and be clear on that. Meditate on that and then, live and die by that…”
— Nipsey Hussle
I cried for Nipsey the other day, having finally listened to the Victory Lap album.
I was mesmerized by his voice and saddened that I will never hear it again outside of this capacity — in songs and interviews.
And I was reminded of the deaths of my favorite rappers, having grown up in the ’90s, exposed from the jump to the rise of rap and hip-hop and subsequent fall of some of the pioneers that paved the way for MCs like Nip.
So I broke down listening to “Last Time I Checc’d” and wished I could’ve lent my ears to his message a little earlier, when he was still alive.