Local Signs

Stopped by the Stop & Shop on Grafton Street earlier today and spotted this Coke display.

BTS: Making a Music Video

Noir Media Group, which has been making music videos in Worcester and all over the Northeast, is headed by Nicholas Black, seen here on the left with R&B sensation, Verse Simmonds, who hails from the beautiful Virgin Islands. (Yeah, I'm biased.)

Well, Verse opened for Fabolous at the Palladium on Thursday, and stuck around Massachusetts to film a number of music videos.

Last month, I posted a few pictures of the filming of the "Go Crazy" music video, by Ariez Onasis & DJ Art Beatz featuring Fatman Scoop & Clinton Sparks, which we filmed the club scene at The Boiler Room.

Ariez Onasis (pictured on the far right in the 2nd picture) has been working on putting out good music and "Go Crazy" has been on heavy rotation on various radio stations across the United States, and certainly played in the clubs in Las Vegas, New York City and in South Beach(Miami).

So stay tuned, and I'll post pictures & the video for "Thinking About You".

Don't Believe the HYPE!

I was having a conversation about race relations, and my belief that we have made "progress" in the past 60-years, but we do live in a time where race and/or ethnicity is a subject that many people avoid discussing, because it's uncomfortable & tensions can run high.

First things first, as human beings, we all want the same things: be happy, provide for our family and enjoy the freedoms that so many gave their lives for in order for US to thrive.

OK, so the conversation turned to the Platinum Premier bouncer, Easton Byfield, who punched a suspected drug dealer not once, but four times in the face. (Read my comment about Byfield being charged with a "Hate Crime on http://WorcesterBloggers.posterous.com)

What if it were Patrick, the suspected drug dealer, who had punched Easton Byfield four times in the face, locked him in a bathroom and taken $300 in cash from Easton's wallet and claimed it as his own? Would Black people be upset? Hell YES!

But, we should be upset based upon one human being taking advantage of another and not solely because we see a Black man beating on a White man. Because we have been taught, from a very early age, to be weary of people different from us, we sometimes don't know when to apply the 'race governor' and stop ourselves from acting irrational.

At the same time, there are people or groups of people that are always looking for the next thing to fly off the top about. I know a number of these people and they have the mentality that, "the world is always trying to screw me." It's sad that they live their life this way, but they have to want to change their thinking and no one can do it for them.

All that I am and believe I've learned from people, but the key has not been taking everything as Gospel.

So, in the great words of Public Enemy, "Don't Believe the Hype!"