NYC Talking

Queens man kidnapped?

Angel Rodriguez — Fri, 24 May 2013 01:41:13 +0000

People often say that I am paranoid. They make that statement because I often talk about self defense, weapons, constant awareness, and combat readiness. I watch my back, and I’m always cautious when walking the city streets. These people believe that we live in a place where bad things can happen, but they’ll never happen to them. Having grown up where I did, and having lived through the things that I have seen, I know better.

The proof is in the pudding folks! A grown man was recently kidnapped in Queens and held captive for over a month! During his month long captivity at a Queens warehouse, he was tortured and constantly threatened by his captors. His mother in Ecuador received a phone call requesting a 3 million dollar ransom. We all know that there are regions of the world where these types of occurrences are commonplace, and we can also understand how this can happen to really wealthy people. But here in NYC, to a seemingly average Joe? 3 million dollar ransom? I tell you this, if it was me, I’d be screwed.

According to the reports neither the victim or any member of his family is especially wealthy. They are not “poor” per se, but certainly not a Bill Gates. As of this point in time, I am not aware as to why he was chosen for the kidnapping. With several suspects in custody perhaps these questions will be answered soon.

Please be careful out there and take good care of yourselves. For more on this story visit ABC News.

(Photo from www.nydailynews.com)

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Tours of the ghetto? | bronx tours

Angel Rodriguez — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:20:54 +0000

Eileen Rivera of Being Latino wrote an article regarding bus tours of the Bronx. These tours operated by “Real Bronx Tours” are not your typical tours though, these are tours geared toward showing the “ugly side” of the Bronx. According to the Being Latino piece and several supporting news posts the tour guide says things like “You shouldn’t walk through here alone” or “This is known as pickpocket park”, as well as other unbecoming statements regarding the neighborhood.

As a man that grew up in the South Bronx, I acknowledge that there are problems with my home borough. Lord knows I experienced quite a bit out there as I grew up. Yet I find it highly offensive and unprofessional for a company to give a bus tour of these neighborhoods while selling how nasty and violent they are. It is an exploitation of the worst kind and these people are clearly lacking in taste.

The Bronx is not all nasty, it also has a rich history which has given us the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Sandra Sotomayor and Colin Powell! In fact I was recently a few blocks away from where I grew up for a wonderful performing arts event at the Bronx Museum of Art.

Due to pressure from politicians and the community overall, the company has allegedly shutdown and stopped advertising these “ghetto tours”, but the fact that they even took it there is extremely disgusting. The company should be boycotted for this terrible offense against the people and the neighborhood. Even though it appears that the tour is cancelled, if you or anyone you know hears anything about this, please let us or the folks at Being Latino know.

The original piece for Beinglatino.us by Eileen Rivera can be found here.

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Pet Shop Boys – New album single: Axis

Angel Rodriguez — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:52:57 +0000

The Pet Shop boys are due to release their 12th studio album, “Electric” in July. Today as I was about to start some writing I went on Spotify in search of some new music. I saw “Pet Shop Boys” and thought to myself “Why is Spotify pushing 80′s music? Must be because I have them on an 80′s playlist or something.” So I clicked on the song. I was wrong, no ladies and gentlemen, “Axis” is not an 80′s song that I somehow missed! It is a brand new single released from the Pet Shop boys brand new upcoming album “Electric”. It’s definitely the Pet Shop boys sound, Synthpop at its best. The single sounds really good and it just flows from the speakers into your ears. I’ve always loved this genre of music and feel it is a welcome addition back into today’s market. Check it out y’all!

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First Reader, now Exchange? Unreliable Google!

Angel Rodriguez — Wed, 15 May 2013 01:22:50 +0000

I’m sure that many of you have read or heard that Google will be shutting down its famed Google Reader. If you search you will find tons of articles referencing alternatives that users can use, there was a mad dash by users to replace the reader, and a mad dash by companies to claim the upcoming vacancy.

As if pulling out the rug from underneath our feet with that wasn’t enough, Google has now shutdown Exchange support for Gmail on new devices. Meaning that, at least for now, if you have Exchange setup on your Iphone, then it will continue to work. However if you get a new phone, next time you will not be able to connect via this method. I just discovered this now after performing a brief search as I tried to setup exchange email on my replacement Iphone and it continued to fail.

This sucks, I used this method not only to receive my emails, but to do a two way sync of my contacts. I don’t know why Google keeps killing these awesome products and services. This only confirms my fear that you should never depend on a third party to manage your data. What happens when they go under, or if they simply decide one day, meh, I don’t want to do this anymore. You know, how Google has done with Exchange and Reader.

This is the second time that Google does this to its long time loyal users, like it or not. I’m currently eyeballing outlook email right now, and I’m considering moving my data over to icloud or even my own servers. At this point I don’t know what to do, but in the next couple of hours I will have figured out how I’ll be going forward.

**Update** The process to sync up Google now adds one extra step, but seems to work the same. I’m going to test out the method provided by our friends over at Imore.com.

Share any ideas you may have with us here. If you have found any awesome alternatives to either the Reader or the Sync, share it with us.

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The World Needs More Empathy

Thuy Yau — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:25:02 +0000

It’s not often that I read a news story that I feel passionate enough to write about. But today was a completely different matter. As some of you may know, I live in Perth, Australia. And the story that I feel compelled to comment on happened right here in this quiet city. Such circumstances led to the loss of two young boys in 2008 – aged two years and 10 months.

Miranda Hebble, aged 22 at the time, was the partner to a fly-in fly-out worker. On that fateful night, she put her two sons in the shower and left the room quickly to fetch something. But feeling exhausted, she lay down on her bed only to accidentally fall asleep. After ten hours, she woke up to find water overflowing from the shower and both boys dead. A post-mortem examination could not reach a definitive conclusion but indicated drowning might have caused the 10 month old’s death, while the two-year-old might have suffered exhaustion, hunger and possibly hypothermia with exposure. No charges were laid at the time.

When this tragic event resurfaced in the news recently, I wasn’t quick to judge. I didn’t assume that Ms Hebble was a negligent mother. I didn’t assume that her story was implausible and therefore, premeditated. Given that I am a young mother myself, with a 2, 4 and 6 year old; I was actually very quick to empathize. I knew there must have been more to the story.

The judgemental comments

Unlike me, though, the people of Perth weren’t so kind in their views. They refused to consider the possibility of postnatal depression and the extent to which this mother could have been struggling.

Most of the comments were to this effect:

“Oh for god sakes, anyone who believes she fell asleep is crazy. She didn’t have support, oh how sad. Join the other hundreds and thousands of women who do it on their own – they don’t fall asleep with their kids IN THE BATH. Poor woman has to live with it for the rest of her life? Get out the violin. She deserves to wake up everyday and remember. You don’t just fall asleep for 12 hours while your babies are in the bath. If she had postnatal depression I’d be a lot more sympathetic, but she needs to say that’s what it is, thereby increasing the awareness, support etc… Not hide behind this fell asleep crap, Jesus give these poor boys more than that. RIP to the innocent poor boys taken so tragically.”

“No excuse… 2 innocent children are dead due to neglect.”

“If you’re that depressed, kill YOURSELF not 2 innocent children!”

As a mother, I do know how precious children are. As a mother, I do know it is my responsibility to love and protect them. But as a mother, I also know that we all make mistakes; sometimes small, sometimes to a larger effect. And the sad truth is, sometimes these mistakes are unrepairable.

The most disturbing part of those comments, though, was the lack of compassion and empathy for the mother. Everyone refused to consider the possibility that the mother could have been clinically depressed and was in a terribly bad state of mind.

So, going on a hunch, I continued to read about the story as further updates appeared. I was determined to get closer to the truth.

Discovering more about the story

The first article I came across, gave me an insight into how the mother had been coping while the father of the boys, Christopher Stevens, had been working away:

“Mr Stevens told the court on Tuesday that Ms Hebble was anaemic and struggled with her sleeping patterns.”

“she was … a parent adapting to having two kids”.

“she was a quiet, antisocial person who stayed in her shell.”

“Mr Stevens said he never thought Ms Hebble could be depressed because she would often shrug off any problems she had.”

As I read these comments, I realized I was onto something. I knew I wasn’t reading about a horrible mother who had abused her children. Instead, I was reading about a mother who had been struggling at the time – both emotionally and physically.

I refused to judge like everyone else. I chose to empathize with her instead.

My theories were confirmed

After spending days thinking about those poor boys and the struggles Ms Hebble probably went through, I came across another article.

This article stated that despite having no diagnosis of postnatal depression, Ms Hebble definitely showed signs of it:

“Expert psychiatrist Felice Watt, giving evidence at the coronial inquest into the boys’ deaths, said although Ms Hebble had no documented history of postnatal depression there were symptoms of the condition scattered through her medical notes.

This “evidence” included loss of appetite, weight loss and sleep disturbance with bouts of insomnia, which could last five days, the inquest heard.

“Mothers frequently feel ashamed of how they feel and how they are coping,” Dr Watt said. “This can be one reason why they don’t tell others what’s going on.”

Reaffirming what I already knew

After maintaining a strong interest in the case, I had a chat to my husband. Due to studying Psychology in the past, I knew that there was always a need to look beneath the surface.

I said to my husband:

“There are so many people who judge Miranda for failing to seek help; arguing that she should have been responsible enough to do something if she had postnatal depression. That she shouldn’t have kept it inside and punished her children for it. But what if she wanted to prove that she could do it, that she could be a good mother? I know as a young mum myself, that’s what I wanted to do in the beginning. To prove people wrong. Maybe she honestly thought she would be okay. But unfortunately, she wasn’t okay like she thought she was. And a tragedy happened leading to her losing her two boys.”

After just one day of having that conversation with my husband, I read a third article proving that I was definitely onto something.

It read:

“Ms Hebble said she would cry when her partner was away and struggled as a young mother.

“I wanted to be strong. I wanted to prove I could do things,” she said.

Although she had a supportive family, Ms Hebble said she did not have many friends and was not as sociable as her partner, who was a fly-in fly-out worker.

The young mother said she would often feel down and went shopping or visited her parents to make herself feel better but never showed her sadness to her family.

“I don’t know why I was sad,” she said.

Malachi had trouble sleeping and when he cried, he would wake up Lochlan, which made her sleep “erratic”, she said.

Ms Hebble said even when her partner was home, she struggled to sleep because she felt like she should be doing things around the house.

“I was ashamed. I was the mother,” she said.

What can this tragedy teach all of us?

It can teach us that the world isn’t so black and white. That we are all capable of making mistakes. That not everything you see or hear about, whether in the media or in your own lives, is as it seems. That sometimes the most horrible of circumstances don’t necessarily have the most horrible of intentions.

What this tragedy can teach us is that sometimes what people need is less judgement, but more empathy.

My last article focused on how each of us can make a difference. How we can choose to make a positive impact on the world. I believe this starts in being kind to those around us. And in showing compassion to others. And listening out for people’s cries for help.

If any good can come from such a tragedy, I believe it’s this:

Rather than judging your friends for the mistakes they make, rather than judging the strangers in the street, rather than judging anyone for living their lives differently to you; show compassion, show empathy, give them a helping hand.

Because sometimes you have to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, before you can realize how it feels to actually walk in them.

Empathize before you judge. Empathy is what the world needs right now.

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A visual trip into dreams of the Bronx.

Angel Rodriguez — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:54:11 +0000

Last night I had a series of weird dreams. The most prevalent though was a dream about my family moving back to my old neighborhood of the South Bronx. 1631 Walton avenue to be exact, one of the toughest areas I experienced growing up. Yes, my dreams still do portray as such.

I still remember the area quite vividly. Walton Avenue runs up the number streets, this area was just below the Grand Concourse.

On the D train the closest stop would be 174th&175th Street

and if taking the 4 train you’d get off at Mt Eden.

There is this huge overpass that gets you into the D train station, or takes you to the top of the concourse.

Should you go under the pass instead of into it a short walk later you would hit my elementary school, CES 70X.

A little further back from my old building there is a huge stairway that takes you up to the Concourse and some yellow colored projects where a makeshift basketball court sits atop of the stairs.

Bad place, lets say that if I’m walking through that area, I walk in the middle of the concourse.

Getting hit by a car poses less risk. Turn the corner from my old building and you’ll find a bodega, guys playing Dominoes, and some other shops.

If you continue walking down the hill here you will hit the entrance to a major highway a little further down by Jerome Avenue.

If you walked away and a bit back from this entrance, you would encounter a space that used to house a little park that me and my buddies used to hang out at when we cut Junior High School. Looking back, I cannot believe the risks that me and these idiots took by hanging out, cutting, at a park by a major highway. The location now houses a little park and a McDonald’s. LOL.

Then a little further up the street, by that dreaded first highway, I really hated, and still hate, crossing that street. It was so dangerous and scary to cross. In any case, there was another park there, one that my mom and dad used to take us, where I first learned how to ride a bike, where me and my little sister used to play. This was all before the weight of the world crushed my soul.

When you graduated in those days, you went to the park in your nice clothes and took pictures, that’s how we rolled, and what you gonna say about that? LOL…

Here I am on my first bike. This was a banana seat cow. You see them from time to time these days, mostly hipsters riding them, but I was rocking it when it was real. Yeah.

Here I am with my little sister at that Jerome park, overlooking a highway, taking a picture with our eyes clothes. Yeah…..

Yeah, so I still remember my old hood quite well. In my dream, when we arrived at the area, I was riding a bike, one of those skinny wheel, curled down handle bar, ugly racing bikes. The block was hot, kids were hanging out in front of the building and running around the streets, thugs were in the corners, and all their eyes were on us.

“Who are these strangers?”, some said as they were unaware that this was my home long before many of them were even a thought. I recognized one of the older guys, this guy named Derek. It’s weird, he was the older brother of a local bully in another one of my old neighborhoods, I’m not sure why he showed up in this dream sequence though. I will say this, “Dee” was always nice to me, unlike his brother who was a bully and a convict in training.

So I put my ugly bike against the wall for two seconds, I looked away for a single moment to take in the scene, and when I looked back my bike was gone. Impossible. I was right next to it, I barely turned and blinked and it was gone. POOF! At this point I was furious, I went off at my mom for bringing us back here. I said “We haven’t even moved in and we have already been robbed!” No way we could move back here!

Next we were in the building hallway. Immediately this young man came out of nowhere, he was wearing a stuffed fanny pack and when the others with me passed he came over to me. He throws something at me, I catch it, examine the bag contents and throw it back. He was selling me heroin? Seriously dude? He says to me, “I’m the man here, anything you need, I have it, if I don’t have it, I can get it”. I thanked him, gave him pound and said I wasn’t interested in any drugs.

At this point I woke up. I’m glad I did though, that is as far down memory lane as I care to go into the old 1631 Walton Avenue neighborhood. Lord knows what would have been waiting for us inside one of those apartments.

I hope you enjoyed my visual and written trip down memory lane. So, if you dreamed of your old neighborhood, what would your memories conjure up?

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NYCT Flashback: Remember the original gameboy? | original nintendo gameboy

Angel Rodriguez — Fri, 03 May 2013 19:01:19 +0000

Maybe you were one of the fortunate kids that was around in the late 80′s and early 90′s. Maybe you were able to get your hands on the original Nintendo Gameboy system? I’m talking about dot matrix, bulky, ugly, colorless, and the super duper awesomeness that is 8 bit heaven! This was a time of innocence, a time for crushes, just a simpler time, a time that I miss very much. Please check out this short but super awesome video of some Super Mario Land World 2-2 Gameplay!

If you are anything like me, then watching this clip, and hearing this song will take you on a long trip down memory lane. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but hearing this almost moves me to tears. I love this song so much! It elicits a bigger emotional response than even the Bubble Bobble or original Super Mario Bros themes get out of me.

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Heavy Hitters 1 by Charlie Scott.

Angel Rodriguez — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 05:03:29 +0000

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

So how was it yo?

Last night I attended the first installment of Heavy Hitters, presented by Charlie Scott in association with LatinosNYC and the Nuyorican poets cafe. To say that this was a good show would be a gross understatement and a misrepresentation of the event. Let’s do this event proper justice shall we? This show was WITHOUT A DOUBT one of the best feature shows I have had the honor of attending. Period. Point blank. End of story. Llegamos!

Charlie Scott put together an event that featured the creme de la creme of NYC talent. The roster of featured performers, the open mic performers (one of which was yours truly), the host, the crowd, the love, everything was absolutely on point. It seems to me that everything Charlie Scott touches is just bound to succeed. Many people have tried to put together these types of shows, but few can claim such high levels of complete and total success, especially on the first attempt.

The short open mic.

The open mic roster was as talented as any I have ever seen. The highlight for me had to be when David Rey Martinez performed a bit where he comically mocked a more serious piece done by Raul K. Rios. He poked fun at himself using the same dark soundtrack that Raul used and saying “I’m a sandwich addict”. I was seriously cracking up. This was situation comedy at its best. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. My man Peach did his thing and held it down with “Stop and Frisk”. The Kriza (spelling?) as our amazing host Nathan P calls Eric Crow Draven, killed it! “B*tch, where’s my money”! Several other performers including myself graced the stage and we all brought our “A games”. Some I know, some I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting yet. I think since everyone of us knew who was performing, and how big the crowd was, we had no choice but to bring it!

But what about those features?

King I’Wante performed several of his most popular tracks, and with his hardcore cousin Madam Muff standing guard, The King, in my opinion had one of his best performances to date.

His set included crying, diamonds, costume changes and even some accidental water squirting on Inspired Word organizers Mike Geffner and Marvin Mendlinger. At least we think it was accidental. Skeet skeet b*tches. Hahah. He did his thing!

Sylvana Joyce and the Moment rocked the house! Sylvana rocked us with her sexy movements right from the start. Can anyone say booty shorts? Wow wee! (Looks around for Mr Chris King). She wasn’t done though, then she rocked us with her amazing vocals and piano playing.

The band performed several of their songs and let it all hang out. It’s all in a days work for this group as they are on their way. Coming up on their radar is a performance on NBC, you know, all in a days work. The band members were all on point. Sean on his violin, Chris rocking out on that guitar, and Ross pounding out those drum beats! This is live band music at its best. It’s no wonder they are top ranked on Reverbnation and are headed to NBC.

Petey Deabreu did a standup set that had everyone including me, laughing and practically falling off of our seats. That’s a funny man. What makes him even funnier to me is that we grew up under similar circumstances, and because of that I can completely, 100% relate to his humor. He spoke about a sister getting a roach stuck in her ear, (I think), well, guess what? When I was a kid a roach crawled up into my ear too! It’s a Bronx thing yo! Don’t hate. Lol.

This brings me to Charlie Scott, the main event of the night. With every single performance you get to see Charlie Scott improve. Yet during every performance this man brings nothing short of perfection. So figure that out. This dude has never had a bad night, yet he continues to outdo himself each and every time. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it time and time again, Charlie Scott is the real deal, a prodigy.

The only established artist I can compare him with is Eminem. Allow me to explain. If you listen to Eminem speak, his voice sounds exactly the same as when he is rapping. So when you are listening to him speak, it’s almost like listening to music. That’s the same way I feel about Charlie Scott. When Scott speaks to you, its in the same voice you hear when he’s spitting those amazing lyrical verses! Its crazy to me to hear him sound exactly the same, and he’s not even trying. Most of us have to “sing”, or try. He may not even realize it, or maybe he does, but his voice is one of a kind and it is perfect for what he does. I’ve been told by some people that I need to chill on the Charlie Scott praises, to them I say nay, this performer is amazing and I will continue to sing his praises so long as he continues to make music.

Charlie Scott had an amazing turnout of personal friends and family. You could see him glowing with pride and joy, you could see the sheer happiness emanating from this man as he performed his songs to applause, and screams of “I love you Charlie Scott”. In one of his songs he directly apologizes to his parents for his bad behavior in the past. During his song “thank you” he says “You’re amazing and I’m grateful tonight, thanks guys”. When he said that I saw his mother smiling with pride.

Seeing this reminded me of when I performed “Dear momma” as a poem for my mom at “Bronx Stories” a year or so ago.

We have both been blessed to be able to share the words we wrote for our parents, with our parents. That is a blessing not granted to all, and I know we both appreciate it.

I made sure I met his mother this evening, we’d spoken on Facebook a few times and I wanted to say hello in person and shake her hand. His mom is hearing impaired, so when I performed my song medley, I kept the microphone away from my mouth, and I did my best to keep my face in her direction in hopes that she was able to read my lips and make out some of the lyrics to my songs.

When Scott was performing I could see the pride on her face. She was glowing and proud as she watched her boy tell their story. I found it very touching. If you don’t know Charlie Scott’s past story, it’s ok, listen to more of his music or just wait for the book to come out. You’ll have to wait a little bit longer though because the story is still being written. Congratulations to all involved with this amazing event.

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Hahm Ji Bach

Christine Ngai — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:53:21 +0000

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I came here with a few of my girlfriends for lunch today. We saw that this place received really good reviews and decided to give it a try. The food was sooooo good that after our meal we could barely walk as our bellies were so full. This is probably the best Korean restaurant I have ever been to so far.

I love SOONDOOBOO so of course I had to order that along with their famous Pork Belly. The Tofu soup was so good and it was super silky soft, I don’t recall ever having it that good anywhere else. The Pork belly was BBQ’d and I had it wrapped around slightly sour radish adding fresh scallion with a dipping soy sauce and peanut powder. If this wasn’t enough, there were tons of little side dishes, and they also gave us a steamed egg bowl that was really good and tasty. The only item that did not impress me was the seafood pancake, but all the other food we had was so good that I completely forgot about the pancakes.

Highly recommended restaurant.

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10 Best Rooftop bars in NYC!

NYCTalking — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:48:39 +0000

LET’S GET READY TO ARRRRGUUUUUE! It seems like we do a roundup of exceptional outdoor drinking and eating spaces every year (maybe because we do), but after spending six months stuck indoors, drinking hot buttered rum and fighting over prime placement by the fireplace, we can’t help but be excited for some social interaction in the open air. We’ll extoll the virtues of backyard bars soon, but for now, here are a few of our favorite rooftop drinking spots; as always, leave yours in the comments.