Awww- A Process Story

Thought this was cute, just stumbled upon my process story from my summer magazine journalism class.

Of course, I wrote about what I'm best at- untangling my hair.

Got a head full of unmanageable curly hair? Here are a couple of maintenance tips:
• It’s easiest to wash and untangle your hair in the shower.
• Wet your entire head using warm water, making sure to rinse out all product buildup.
• Work a generous amount of shampoo into your hair.
* Shampoos (and conditioners, gels, etc.) from Tresemme, Herbal Essence, Lush, and Redken are extremely popular for use on thick and curly hair. However, moisturizer is what matters most in choosing a shampoo. Products specifically geared toward curly hair are also helpful.
• Thoroughly massage shampoo from scalp to ends, rinse, and repeat.
• After rinsing out all of the shampoo, meticulously apply a handful of deep and thick conditioner.
`• Use a wide-tooth comb, which will help to prevent hair breakage. If your hair is extremely tangled, separating it to untangle the smaller chunks is easiest.
• From here on, what’s most important is patience.
• Take a deep breath and try to refrain from being rough with your hair. NEVER attempt to start combing from the roots. This is damaging.
•Start running the comb through your hair starting at the ends.
• Continue combing, reaching higher and higher with the comb, until you are able to comb directly from the roots to the ends.
• For those of you with shoulder-length or longer hair, this gentle process can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. Be eco-friendly and turn the shower off while untangling.
•After detangling, rinse out the conditioner-- but not completely! It’s always healthy to leave in a little conditioner.
•There are several ways to handle your hair once you are out of the shower. Some choose to let it air dry, while others towel dry, before putting products into it. Others choose to use products before diffusing it. (A diffuser is a hair dryer attachment with prongs to lift the hair while drying it.) What works best for your mane?
• Avoid products with a lot of alcohol, these dry out your hair. Be sure that the product
moisturizes and eliminates frizz, and has many natural products. Good luck!

I think I got a B =)

-franso

I Poke Her Face- Kid Cudi, Kanye, & Common

*Courtesy of YouTube

I've been listening to this for the past 2-3 days and I'm still trying to figure out what's worse: Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" so smoothly becoming a song about oral sex (You poke her face, huh.... how ridiculously clever- as hard as that is to admit!) or Common's verse:

She said she want whatever she like
But she gotta bring your friend
We could have a hell of a night, through the day
She blamed it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol
She had her hair did, it was bound to fall
Down, down for a damn, Cudi already said it
A poker face book I already read it
But man, her head was gooder than the music
electro body known to blow fuses
A stripper from the south lookin for a payday
Said bitch you should do it for the love like Ray Jay
But they say you be on that conscious tip
Get your hair right and get up on this conscious dick
I embody everything from the Gali to the party
Its the way I was raised on the south side safari, so...

:( why Common? Why do you do it to me? We've discussed this before. You aren't to go any further than "Come Close" "I Want You" and "Go"... That's YOUR area of sexy (Which, might I add, is pretty damn sexy. You went crazy on your latest album Universal Mind Control talking about "touching me where the sun don't shine" and I didn't like it one bit... NOW YOU'RE ADDRESSING HOMEGIRL IN YOUR VERSE AS "BITCH"?! The world is ending, has to be.
"Get up on this conscious dick".... You just went all out, huh?

*deep, analytical sigh*

My love affair with all things Common became a challenge RIGHT AFTER Finding Forever.

But wait.

I found what's the worst thing about this "I Poke Her Face" situation: how ridiculously catchy the damn song is.

I'm done.

-franso
PS- I know you were trying to be cool Common, but her head wasn't gooder- IT WAS BETTER.
Sorry, but as a journalism major, that shit made me twitch...

Eminem's We Made You

Eminem - New Music - More Music Videos

.............*crickets*

Well hello there, Dr.Dre.

-franso

Amanda Diva Overload

I loved her on Def Poetry.
Her commentary on several VH1 shows is pretty funny.
She definitely rocked the crowd when she opened for Lupe at Nokia.
Diva Speak TV is super entertaining.
I follow her on Twitter.... the list goes on and on.

My latest obsessions though? Her FreEP (Free EP) Spandex, Rhymes, & Soul, which she gave a link to a couple of weeks back when it came out. What a perfect name for a retro, funkadelic, trippy, soulful, urban, catchy, dreamy album.
Got homegirl singing AND rapping. (And I remember her saying she had to mix a lot of the tracks herself... whaaaaaat.)
Shit is smoooooooooth.
I can seriously let the whole shit rock- isn't that a blessing these days?!

Favorite Track: Heart Strings

I. CAN'T. GET. IT. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD.

It came out a while ago, but here's the link in case you're late on life:
http://www.zshare.net/download/56393212d67eeed0/

Enjoy, trust me.

=)

-franso

PS- Sidenote, when are Jill Scott and Erykah Badu coming back to the area? I'm just sayin'...

Battery Park Pt. 2

Here's my Urban Journalism piece for my visit to Battery Park, rough draft:

I was careful to stand about 15 feet from the Hudson River and still felt darts of water travel with the wind and latch onto my lenses. After having to take off my glasses a few times to wipe them, I wound up shoving them into my pocket instead. Of all days, I chose what seemed to be the windiest of the year to come out and peer at the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park. Fifteen minutes earlier, as I squeezed past people while trying to exit the train station at Bowling Green, I realized that I wasn’t the only one braving the gloomy sky and rough currents for a piece of what once was.
As an uptown New Yorker, it is easy to associate international tourists with Central Park, Times Square, and Ground Zero, while completely forgetting about the rich and abundant history found at the tip of Manhattan. However, walking through Battery Park was like stepping back into time and I was forced to immediately appreciate all that surrounded me.
The large sphere created by Fritz Koenig was the monument I related to the most, for it once stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center and was almost destroyed on September 11, 2001. Out of respect, I paused to study its disfigured pieces and awkward shape. Right before my mind was consumed with sadness, the way the structure still held its robustness filled me with hope and satisfaction.
Drawn to the water, I found myself near the edge of the harbor once more and felt solitude reminiscent to that of Pete Hamill’s visits. My heart skipped a beat when my eyes registered the American Merchant Mariners Memorial, he so compellingly described, a couple of feet away. An overwhelming mixture of fear and astonishment filled me as I took in the three seamen trying to rescue a fourth from the water as the waves tragically engulfed his face with every current.
While Pete Hamill and I come from two dissimilar walks of life, I wandered through Battery Park with a deeper understanding for his fascination than I thought I would. Not one usually interested in patriotism for this country, I couldn’t help but feel something very heavy and foreign building inside of me. I had the misconception that since I was younger than him, the war monuments from before my time, such as those of World War II, wouldn’t affect me much. Maybe I’ve been patriotic all along.

True, true.
Looks like a B plus to me!

=)

-franso

Battery Park

Long story short, I had to go into Battery Park last night with 2 classmates (not just classmates, I see you Ramona) for an Urban Journalism paper we have due tomorrow. It was actually very fun, I got there at 4 (ON THE DOT) and wandered around in that hazardous, chilly wind for a while before the other girlies got there. That area is TOO historical for me. Every. Little. Thing. Had a special meaning! It was rather amazing, nice change of pace since I usually don't go past South Street Seaport (STILL love that place, emotionally attached and shit)/

Anyways, of all of the monuments and memorials- trust that there were many- my favorite was this one:

Insaaaaaaaaaanity, the way the waves engulfed the soldier's face every time... Creepy. I couldn't look away though! For a minute I was just standing there thinking about A) how real this looked and how it was affecting me and B) how things like this happen during war all the time. Sucks.
A little background info? Conceived in 1978, created in 1988, dedicated in 1991. Real event, based off a picture the Germans took of their victims in WWII.

Some heavy shit.

-franso

Dear Me, Sincerely Me

Twitter is taking over my life.
The other day Erykah Badu was talking about writing a letter to herself and then suggested we all do the same.
Of course, I had to participate, thought it was a nice idea.
Really thinking about it though, I think it's rather healthy... You know? To talk to yourself every now and then. Boost your own ego. Worry about YOU. Impress YOU- MOTIVATE YOU, APPRECIATE YOU!!!
...I'm just sayin', you know? We worry so much about others... hello- sometimes we all we got! Fuck the rest.

Here's what i had for my first line:

dear mightyfranso, i know it gets hard, and you wanna quit-but you have no choice but to succeed.

Sounds about right. I would then go on to mention something along the lines of not wasting time on people who don't waste time on me, creating a healthier regime for my daily life, how great it feels to be getting closer to God, fully embracing the fact that i'm the shit and WILL meet some guys worthy of my time eventually, continuing to spend a lot of time with my cousins because that bond is something special... and DAMMIT i'm impressed that i haven't dropped out yet! (Not dropped out- but you know lol)

life is NOT that serious... and you only have one.
BREATHE
=)

-franso

PS- get at yourself every once and a while, it's healthy.