Location, Location, Location

"Fight For Your Right (To Party)" was the first 7" record I purchased as kid. I remember taking out RUN-DMC and Cinderella records from the public library before that, but this was the first record I bought with my hard earned allowance. "Licensed to Ill," though classic seemed to come and go like a fad during my childhood.

Years later, I'm in junior high which was probably the most perverted and profane point in my life, enter the "explicit lyrics" sticker. Anything from 2 Live Crew, Too Short, NWA, Geto Boys, Digital Underground, EPMD... If it had swearing on it, then I had to hear it. Fortunately in 1989 the Beastie Boys came out of hiding to drop "Paul's Boutique" with little fanfare. There was one copy that sat in Sam Goody forever. Though it had no text on the front cover it did have an explicit lyrics sticker. This prompted me to purchase it when there was nothing else that interested me one week. Thank god I did.

Paul's Boutique will always rank up in my top 10 albums. Nothing will ever be packed so densely full of samples and references. Though recorded in LA this album is truly an ode to New York City. Ever since moving to New York I find myself reciting lyrics when the mood of "city love" strikes me...

New York New York It's a helluva town
You know the Bronx is up and I'm Brooklyn down

Or when I'm walking around Manhattan and see a continuous flow of beautiful women, spanning every race, age and style imaginable, I begin to mumble the opening song, "To All The Girls." The Brooklyn girls, French girls, Oriental girls, etc.

For more info check out www.paulsboutique.info or read the 33 1/3 book by Dan LeRoy about the making of the album.

Anyway, this is my first posting on BGE, which will be a blog that I just want to highlight things I'm into (which I know is such a lame blog). So it's going to be music, magazines, art, design, fashion, sneakers and whatever else seems fit to make note of. I think this will be the longest posting I will write. Future postings will mostly be copying and pasting stuff. The first posting was just getting over the "hump" and writing about something that was discovered in my youth and now moving to New York it has a whole new context as do so many other songs, books and films. Let's face it, a lot of shit takes place in or comes from New York. Just saying the word makes me want to break into "Hello Brooklyn."