“BOYS, BOYS BOYS” EXPERIMENT ON THE WEST SIDE HIGHWAY

This week has been extremely exhausting so I’ve been a bit MIA. This entry is a light one, so I’m going it keep it very easy and laugh out loud. First of all, take a look at the picture of the week, it is a bit difficult to see but it’s a picture of an older Caucasian woman playing ping-pong with a younger black male on a public ping-pong table in Bryant Park. The sight was so great that I couldn’t help but to take a picture. Since I was taking the picture without their knowledge and also with my phone it isn’t very clear. I spent a long time watching, Only in New York and a million other places but I’m in New York so all those other places don’t count (stick out tongue)

In other news, I have discovered an artist by name Matisyahu that I really like. A friend of mine had to bust my bubble by letting me know that he is not new at all but I got his Album and his message is philosophically sound and consistent with what I share about hope in the world, love and hopeless romance. Now lets talk about listening to lady Gaga on the highway

I first heard the song “Boys, Boys, Boys” by lady Gaga at my fellowship leader’s apartment. We were hanging out and she decided to play her gaga album. Aside from the singles on radio, which I like, I didn’t know until that day how good that album is, I liked almost all the songs I listened to from the Album. So it was no surprise that when I got home, I got the album. “Boys Boys Boys” quickly became a favorite even though I had no idea what she was saying in the lyrics, it was a favorite still after I found out what she was saying. There’s something about that song that makes me want to pump my fist in the air and jump around like I just don’t care. FUN

Like most people, when I like a song I tend to play it over and over again. The lyrics of the song are very feminine (it’s about girls and how they like boys who drive nice cars and buy them drinks in bars) but the beat and the lightness of it is what I enjoy. It’s especially fun to listen to when driving on the west side highway on a nice warm Saturday evening. That is what I found myself doing two weeks ago en route to my weekly fellowship group meeting. My windows were down because the weather was nice and I had “Boys boys boys” basically stuck on repeat, boy was that a bad idea. Traffic was initially good when I joined the highway around Chambers Street. I was breezing through doing my head bobs and fist pumps each time the chant came through; I was having a wonderful time until traffic begun to slow around, 20^th street then suddenly having “Boys boys Boys” on repeat wasn’t so much fun anymore. I began to get into my head what it would mean to change music in the moment and I realized how pretentious, cowardice and hypocritical that would be and in those moments my tendency to not pretend wins so I knew not to change the track, however what I hadn’t decided was whether to continue pumping my fist in the air in excitement (YAY FUN!!) or boringly keeping them on the wheels, where they technically belong.

I consciously try to tone down the expressions and excitement when listening to music on the road when people are driving right next to me in a jam, mostly because I am shy and prefer to keep my expressions and animations private and to myself. However, I feel the real reason is that I fear that my gesticulations and movements will shock my audience immensely, thereby possibly sending them to an early grave. I decided to test out my shock hypothesis and the results were nothing short of interesting. The first set of people who drove next to me were in a mustang. Their windows were down and it was a guy driving, a girl in the front seat and another guy in the back. I begun my experiment and it was ummm quite uncomfortable. I had to pretend they weren’t in the thick of the slow moving traffic and do what I would do normally when I’m driving and listening to“Boys, boys boys”. I stared straight ahead and did my head bobs and body jerks and fist pumps and their reaction? To die for! My peripheral vision gave me a taste of their reaction to this quite foreign and in someway, bizarre new cultural experience

The driver looked confused, like he had seen an alien. His expression was that of disbelief that he was not just looking at a black dude, on the road, jamming to lady Gaga’s boys boys and crazily into it like I was. I wish I could’ve pinched him so he could see it was real. The girl cast a quick glance my way and kept a forward gaze with an “I’m about to burst wide open once we are past your car” look on her face but the best was guy in the back who was laughing his guts out. He was laughing so hard, and uncontrollably that it made me almost break character to laugh at me too and not in a bad way (I find joy in seeing people laugh so much that I burst out laughing with them even if I don’t know what they are laughing about)

These people drove alongside me a while but their lane moved a little faster than mine and then a different car, a van pulled up into their spot. At this point the song had just ended and was about to replay The driver was a heavyset African American male and I proceeded with my experiment. Needless to say it didn’t go over well. After about 20 seconds into the song, he rolled up his windows and looked at me puzzled. I did not quite understand it but I think it was his right not to entertain or engage my actions on any level and I could roll with that. I could have interpreted his actions in a multitude of ways but the one I choose is that he was probably cold and in the moment needed to roll up his windows or that he didn’t particularly enjoy that type of music and that is what I’m sticking with.

This entry was just a documentation of an experience, Hopefully, I’m going to do a whole entry on music and how it reflects on an individual, I have so much to say on that topic however, I’m curious to know what kind of experiences people have had around music. I’m interested in knowing 3 things.

1. Have you been judged or categorized because you listen to a particular song or like a particular genre of music?

2. What would make you listen to a particular song is it the Lyrics, Beat, Genre?

3. What do you do when you are driving or have your headsets on in the train or walking and a song you love begins to play or is playing?

You don’t want to miss the entry on Music, stay reading

Bless!!