Obama Fried Chicken & Pizza

Obama Fried Chicken & Pizza, originally uploaded by ronntaylor

I finally broke down and went inside. I ordered the 6 mixed pieces. Had to wait several minutes, so I went outside and took the pic. It's crappy because my digicam was batteryless and I used my Rant cam. Went back inside and observed the workers and customers. Besides a couple of other African Americans, most of the clientele was West African. I asked a man that appeared to be the manager (owner?) if the joint was always called Obama Fried Chicken. He said yes, but the sistagirl waiting at the window shook her head no and sucked her teeth. My new roomie says she thinks it was a Kennedy Fried Chicken till recently.

The manager (owner?) is apparently from Burkina Faso. He was excited when a middle-aged man with his young daughter answered his question -- Where are you from? -- with Burkina. They talked in their native tongue and behaved as if they were long-lost relatives.

The food? Mediocre. I've had better at Crown and Church's Fried Chicken spots. I'll try to get a day time shot to show the complete sign.

UPDATE: I found a better pic here.

New iPod Shuffles...

Apple updated it's smallest music players: iPod Shuffle-HAL. 4GB at $79. (The 1 GB 2nd gen shuffles are still available at $49 for you bargain hunters.) I want one, but not if you must use Apple's crappy earbuds.

"Erasure" Comes To The Big Screen

[VIA Felicia McBride's BackList blog ] :

Black Voices Blogs | Angela Bassett to Step Behind Director's Chair With 'United States'

The Hollywood Reporter states that Bassett will make her directorial debut with 'United States,' an indie feature she's also producing with her Bassett/Vance Productions partner and husband Courtney B. Vance.

'United States,' based on the novel 'Erasure' by Percival Everett, is a dramatic comedy about Thelonius "Monk" Ellison, a prominent black literary figure who writes a faux autobiography from the perspective of a barely literate hoodlum troubled by the glorification of "ghetto" culture. When the book is lauded as a contender for the National Book Award, Ellison must choose between pride and fame.

I'm both excited and afraid. Excited because one of my favorite recent works of fiction is coming to the big screen. Afraid because one of my favorite recent works of fiction is coming to the big screen. The fact that the title was changed and most mentions I've read have the plot partially or totally wrong makes me think this will be another lackluster movie version of a great work of fiction. I'm still there for opening weekend next year.

Dine-In-Brooklyn 2009 (Mar 23 - Apr 2)

Yesterday (oops, my bad!) was the beginning of Dine In Brooklyn 2009. Above is the flyer from my favorite restaurant in NYC. For a complete list, check out Brooklyn.com's complete restaurant listing.

New Residents + Fellows @ Eyebeam

I'd like to highlight one of Eyebeam's new residents:

Kenseth Armstead is a multimedia installation artist. His works have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum; the Whitney Museum of American Art; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Berlin VideoFest; and MIT List Visual Arts Center. His videos, drawings and sculptures are included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, African American Museum and numerous public and private collections.

Recently, Kenseth was the Artist in Residence at Harvestworks (2006), the Castle Trebesice outside Prague, CZ (2006), and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's, Workspace Program (2007). Kenseth has co-authored multi-media installations collaboratively with the art-band, X-PRZ, which he co-founded with his mentor Tony Cokes in 1991. He was also the founding Managing Editor of Rhizome Internet, (rhizome.org) which he helped launch in 1996.

Kenseth currently resides in Brooklyn, where he maintains the digital atelier, Platinum Labs, and Catskill, NY, where he has constructed the large-scale sculpture & object fabrication shop, "ice studio." While at Eyebeam, Kenseth will work on his ongoing HD digital video production environment that utilizes hand-made sets and an "open-source casting's methodology to create the footage for the narrative feature-film Spook 1781. The film, which is based on a true story, relates the incredible tale of the spy / slave James Armistead Lafayette and how he ended the American Revolution.

Death Of An African American Giant

John Hope Franklin, Black Historian

John Hope Franklin, a towering scholar and pioneer of African-American studies who wrote the seminal text on the black experience in the U.S. and worked on the landmark Supreme Court case that outlawed public school segregation, died Wednesday. He was 94.

F L I X : Alvin Baltrop

[ via Bernie's posting on a newsgroup ] :

Alvin Baltrop By Osa Atoe

At the age of 26, Alvin Baltrop began photographing what was going on at Manhattan's West Side piers. The area, full of abandoned warehouses and dilapidated industrial piers, became a temporary home for queer teenage runaways and a cruising spot for gay men. It was a place that was under the radar. People went there to do drugs, muggings were common and so, unfortunately, were rape, murder and suicide. Baltrop's camera captured gay public sex, the public art of muralist Tava, various unknown graffiti artists, as well as pieces by David Wojnarowicz, who also visited the piers. Baltrop documented homelessness, death and the stark decay of run-down warehouses with depth and grace.

Sadly, I never heard of this photog. Or the magazine zine where the above article originally appeared, Shotgun Seamstress. FYI:Osa Atoe is the founder and executive editor of Shotgun Seamstress, a zine by and for Black punks, queers, feminists, artists and musicians.