UK Adventure Day 3 - Play Time

Okay, day 3 didn't quite get off to an early start. I had been waking up at 5am EST for the last two days and not exactly sleeping soundly (I never sleep well in new environments...) but when we did wake and get it together. We took a stroll through Camden which was pretty cool. It's basically a huge shopping area, total artsy place to be. I saw this really fly leather coat but wasn't willing to spend 200 pounds ($400 US) on a coat...not happening lol...but I did get some really cute jewelry and while walking through Camden I got to get a pretty interesting perspective of what the British think of Americans. We're walking through the shops and tell me why do I come across a newspaper with the following headline 'How To Have Sex Like an American'....Really London? This is what's important? More important than the students protest against paying for higher education? More important than the elections? WTF? And what does that mean anyways? Hell I'm American and I don't even know if I'm having sex like an American LOL....Needless to say I had to take article with me because I just was too curious. So I asked the man who's paper it was if I could have the article and we joked and he gave it to me LOL. We'll discuss the article later LOL...

So after Camden we headed to my feature at Close Up in Queens Head...this place is pretty fly. It's kind of retro but new age and hip all at the same time. The food was good (not cheap but good) and I met Greeds, and Ms. Chloe and Tshaka Campbell came through to show love.

I was the first artist to perform so I kicked a poem and then rocked a few poems with the house band who may I say were bad ass...The last piece I did was Promise but we completely improved and the Lovely Ms. Chloe KILLED IT on the vocals...She's amazing!!! The audience was extremely supportive, I sold 27 pieces, in a crowd of about 80 people... A lovely night indeed!!! The other artist were fun, It was cool to see (forgive me for not remembering his name) this artist who's on Dizzy's label (I love Dizzy's stuff and honestly didn't know he had a label so it was an extra special treat for me). The artist was dope the crowd was dope and there was tons of talent there for the night!!!

I couldn't leave London without hitting the club so we made a trip to Lester Square to check out the night life. First of all on the bus ride there some random British business man (a banker) was all in our conversation and in the process of this conversation he insulted us twice with a smile and had us thanking him when he was done LMAO....example, we're discussing which club we're going to go to and he makes a suggestion and tells Belinda and I that there are lots of good looking strong men there not like these guys (Josh and Greeds) we were with ROTF...I couldn't believe it. It was so awesome ROTF....

We wind at this club called Rumba (I think) and I had a couple of shots and a couple of drinks and tons of dances....my god tons of dances. First of all, I didn't see a bunch of grindin so I definitely looked mad american in the spot, secondly there were too many people sitting around...really people, you paid 10 pounds to sit and drink? I can do that at home LOL....SO my song comes on (Dynamite by Mr. Cruz) and I hit the floor and I'm dancing with this guy, all is well, he's got no rhythm but I don't care and suddenly he grabs a hand full of my hair tilts my head to the side and licks my neck....Party DONE WTF?? Who does that....I was too shocked to do anything but get out of dodge and wash my neck in the bathroom....really London, this is what's poppin' on the streets? LMFAO!!!!

Then some slap happy Nigerian/Russian chick comes to our table cause we're the fun place to be and is play fighting with the boys and somewhere in the midst of it all decides it's okay to slap people in the face....really London? This is what's poppin' on the streets? Needless to say that didn't end too nicely....Sort of stopped the groove a bit....but then we moved on. I had way too much fun....and there's soooo much more but what happens in Rumba stays in Rumba my friends.....so we headed home around 5am and I got ready for my flight....Next stop Frankfurt.... :)

UK Adventure Day 2 - Night Life....

Okay, so I didn't have a feature on the second night but I did perform at the legendary Poetry Cafe. My escort/friend/tour guide/all around baby sitter, Josh, had to work that night so I was left in the care of the lovely Belinda and the amazing Ray(I think I remembered the name right).

We were there pretty early so I had a cappuccino (courtesy of the lovely Elly of France, pictured left; I think he felt sorry for me and my horrible french lol) and a tomato feta garden salad. The salad was AMAZING!!!! I mean dance worthy good lol. The coffee was lovely too but I really really enjoyed the salad (this could be a biased opinion given that I skipped breakfast LOL).

If I had to compare the poetry cafe to something in NYC I would say it's like The Bowery (as far as the design and books for sale etc). However, the performers and the way they run the open mic is NOTHING like ANYTHING in the states LOL....(this is a good thing mostly LOL).

First of all the open mic list is about 30/35 people deep and secondly each performer has 5 minutes. And when Nail (I hope I spelled that right) says you have 5 minutes, he means 5 freakin' minutes. He puts a HUGE timer behind you with 5 minutes on it and when that thing hits 0 he doesn't care if you're mid sentence he will stop you without a second thought LOL....While my poems are short, I still found myself feeling uncomfortable/nervous/worried about the time while I was up there. Insane. If that bothered me as a professional I can't imagine what first timers feel like. Some people used every last drop of their 5 minutes (and I don't blame them because I did lol) and others talked as fast as they could to get as much as they could said within the 5 minutes. It was mania.

Nail was an awesome host, he's super funny, the poetry was a mix of amazing mind blowing work, short stories and such and some very candid, I just want to get something off my chest type of work. Which made for a very lovely night!!!

After the poetry we walked some of London and went to an area that is basically the British Time Square only it's WAY Smaller and MUCH EMPTIER LOL...it was weird. Ray says it's because it was a week night (Tuesday) but if you've ever been to NYC you know that Time Square is NEVER Empty no matter what day of the week or what time of day....then we bought McDonald's and had to sit inside a burger king to eat it because the McDonald's dining area was closed...I never felt more nervous in my life LOL...for some reason I felt like the burger king police were going to come down and ask us to leave because we weren't eating their food....I believe we inhaled the food and started walking again.

We met with Josh after his shift ended and sat in a like a chicken king fast food place until like 3am when they kicked us out. We took the bus home and life was good. BTW, if you're ever out in London the tube apparently closes late nights.....just fyi. This came as a shock to me since as a New Yorker you know you can catch the subway at any time of day....we're so much alike but not really LOL.....

Last day in London coming up :(.....

UK Adventure Day 2 - Tourist Life

My second day in London began around 10am (5am EST) with a beautiful view of the sun peeping in my window. It was surprising that for the entire time I was in the UK I had wonderful weather, not one rainy day....a threat of rain but not a drop to fall...Baller!!!

Josh gave me a quick lesson in money, was kind enough to feed me some super spicy Nigerian rice and chicken for breakfast; which I tried my best to pretend wasn't scolding my taste buds but after the first spoonful and 2mins of bulging eyes I decided that pretending wasn't going to work and just let it go LOL....My god. Then it was off the Internet cafe so that I could let my parents know that I made it safely and all was well (My Mom watches too many movies and she thought I would be like the girl from Taken, I'll save that for another blog lol). From there it was off to play time and pure tourist joy!!!

We took the tube (which as clean [I mean no rodents in sight, no trash, no smells of urine], small and simple [no uptown downtown, no express/local] looking as it is I still haven't quite figured out lol...and might I add that the British are SERIOUS about knowing the whereabouts of their citizens. You have to swipe in and swipe out of the tube....Really? I mean Really?? You gotta know where I am at all times? Do me a favor just put a GPS chip in my ass at birth, save me the hassle LOL) and we were off to Trafalgar Square.

Oh wait, before Trafalgar Square, there was a very entertaining exchange where I really showed off my American Public School Education....we were walking along a road and you could see Big Ben from where we were, so Josh offered to take me there and I was like 'I'm not interested in the clock' LOL LMAO.....I didn't think about how insulting that must have been....it's like someone calling the statue of liberty a torch....so effffed up....my bad LOL. Needless to say after that comment he didn't take me LOL....

Now Trafalgar Square, It's awesome!!! People feed pigeons, there's a really cool boat in a bottle (it's freaking huge), a museum and most importantly the Lions!!! First of all, I couldn't get on the bloody thing because my jeans were sliding so these lovely ladies helped me get up there (I think they may have been LGBT because the really held on to my bum for a little longer than necessary....awkward turtle.....LOL :) anyways once I'm finally on the thing we take mad pictures. I think of the silliest poses I can make and go for it. The only thing that could have made it better is if I could have tagged the Lion and snapped a shot of it LOL. So Brooklyn....And the whole time that I doing all this silly business I'm thinking how uncomfortable we must be making natives feel because they all seem soooo proper....but it gets even better during the week.....

There's a dope museum in the square and an amazing bathroom (I know that shouldn't be my biggest concern but a girl likes a nice bathroom) lol.....From there we were off to another gig but that's an entirely separate blog.... oh, the delight.... More about that tomorrow ;)

UK Adventure - Day 1

Sooo, people have been asking about my recent tour through Europe and rather than have to tell the story 100 times I figured I'd just blog about it.

My first stop on the 10 day tour was London and the first day was anything but ordinary ;). I arrived in Heathrow around 10am (5am EST) and my knight in shining armor, Josh (pictured left), made a 6 hour journey on skateboard (okay really by bus lol) to rescue me. Why did it take him 6 hours....because it was my luck that the fabulous tube workers were on strike that day lol. Best thing about it was that I got to do some writing while I waited, worst part...I had no international service on my phone and wasn't sure what the pay phone was charging me on my credit card so I think I only checked in with him twice AND I had actually never met Josh, so I really didn't know what he looked like lol.

Upon my rescue we headed towards the city at a beautiful rate of 18pounds (which is like $36) and arrived in time to attend an album release for a friend of Josh's. First of all the city is crazy clean...really! No rats, no trash, no funny smells (at least not where we were) and second of I never realized how American I am until this trip lol. I almost got ran over every time we crossed the street because I kept looking the wrong way LMAO, I kept getting strange looks when asking for the restroom because apparently a toilet and a bathroom are two different things and I kept freezing my hands to death because the hot and cold water faucets are set in reverse of how they're set in the states lol.

At the album release I couldn't get over the fact that they reference 'The Queen'. That's such a strange thing to hear as an American because while you know what they're talking about and you know it's a real person; you can't help but feel like you're in a fairytale and start to see visions of the queen from Shrek or something lol. So silly but this is where my mind was. I met the lovely Belinda (pictured above) at the album release and she accompanied us to my first feature of the week @ 'Kid I Wrote Back'.

This event was off the hook. I met some great new friends and saw a very different aspect of poetry. I mean people were really going in; there were people who performed in masks, people performed very experimental/theatrical poetry and I saw some really cool amazing traditional poetry as well!! My set was fun, we laughed joked and then the audience was kind enough to support financially as they purchased albums. May I just say that London currency is easy once you know it but until you do, you just have to trust that people aren't going to rip you off and you're not ripping them off when you're giving them change lol...I'm sure they'll say something in the later case but there's a lot of trust involved in the earlier case.

We wrapped up our evening around 12am ish which is like 7pm EST, ate Kebab & Chips (which were not what I expected lol...I asked for a side of chips and thought I was going to get a small portion, these suckers gave me like 5lbs of fries...really? WTF lol) and I laid to rest in Hackney, thrilled about my first day and looking forward to the remainder of my trip.

Who Broke the Weather Machine.....

SOOOO, I'm stranded in Chicago's O'Hare Airport all because somebody broke the weather machine and I'm not really feelin' it. I mean I'm down for a snow day here and there but I mean REALLY!!! WTF??? What happened to the good old days of global warming making all our winters mild?? Who set HARRP to Mary's bedroom (cause you know Joseph wasn't giving it up, since she gave him the Okie doke LOL j/k) ? Then to make matters worst, I can't do anything on Face book without getting an error message b/c there's too many of y'all suckers (I mean that with love LOL) online right now....I mean what am I supposed to do with my time (in the words of Uncle Ruckus) "I'm black, I'm not going to the moon. I'm going to the liquor store" LOL.

Speaking of silly stereotypes. I watched a documentary called The Legacy of the Ku Klux Klan and man was it insane. They interviewed Klan members on the documentary and one man said (and mind you this is an interview that took place in 2001) that 'black people were brought to the states as slaves which means they're not our equals and I hope they all go away and stop breathing all the white man's air....' That was the funniest thing I had ever heard. I mean when Chappelle said that as the character Clayton Bigsby, I fell out but to see a person who truly believes that in their heart, in the 21st century, with all the technology that we have......that is just priceless!!!! Best comedy show I ever watched, 'The Legacy of the KKK'....you have to check it out....you'll be surprised at what you learn...It's on the History Channel if you got cable....if not...Netflix son!!!

Well lovelies, I could go on all day but I'm going to spare you the blabber this time. :) Much luv and stay warm,

Sabrilliance...yes I said it LOL...Sabrilliance

Welcome back

So in case it needs reiteration, I am a college student and if that can work as a probable excuse for my three month absence then so be it; I was on a summer vacation.
Anyways, not much has happened over the same, not much worth writing about..erm MJ died a couple of hours after Farrah and totally stole her thunder. I would do a whole 'why he was the best" tribute but that horse has been beaten to death.
The oh so awesome United States of America decided that since they couldn't get people to stop talking about health care they'd try a diversion technique-que the UBS inquisitions. Now I am all for them cracking down the top wealthiest 1 percent of this nation but lets be real, those investigating the case were probably very friendly with the perps. C'mon feds-we're not that dumb. Well it was blown up in the media for all of a day or two I think, then UBS said screw it, we'll give you the names and numbers of all the hedge fund managers you're looking for if you quit harassing us. And they did-and furthermore I'm sure they're not going to do anything in the way of persecuting anyone...I mean they're money is green...very green.
Erm...what else what else..
Oh hey last night I was watching Mad Men(if you don't know anything about this AMC hit show, find the nearest knife and gorge your right eye out...you deserve it), and they(get this) SMOKED WEED!!! Okay for those of you who don't feel the excitement my capital letters were supposed to impart, let me clear it up. Mad Men is a show centered around the lives of a couple of people that work in an ad agency on Madison Avenue. It is set in the early sixties(time pieces are awesome!) so everyone still smokes,the secretaries are referred to as 'Girls' and they all but bathe their bosses, oh and then there's the booze..so much scotch! I mean they get brandy with breakfast-it's all very glossy and glamorous!!
Anyways last night the creative dept had to come up with 5 holiday scenarios for a Bacardi ad, They were working on a Saturday afternoon at the office when the conversation turned to weed..this dude goes "I wrote my dissertation in college on....and my muse; Mary Jane" I was like WHOA!! was that a marijuana reference? Awesome!!(Don't do drugs kids). I think the icing on the cake was when Peggy(the little uptight-looking only woman who isn't a secretary on the show) walks in and goes "I want to smoke marijuana" in her sing-song 'I love Lucy' voice. Priceless. If I met the people who wrote this episode I would buy them some Columbia...never mind-I'd uh congratulate them.
Well now that I have done some serious advertisement for the show, I'll be off to further my education;until next time
Peace.....

Still Buzzin' from Freak Nasty

Freak Nasty was last Thursday and people are still buzzin' from the event! Everything from that night was on point. The host JP Justice kept us laughing with all kinds of jokes from Potatoe Salad at Black Cook Outs to Lessons for the Bedroom. Then each artist added their own special twist to their erotic poetry and the night was full of suprises.....Don't take our word for it, read below to see what others had to say about the show.

~A, you should be still grinning from last night show! Everything was amazing! Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it! Everyone that came - that I know- greatly enjoyed themselves! Like you said - I have now performed at the Le Poisson Rouge! :)

~OMG Ainsley/Brina .. FREAK NASTY was GREAT!!! Can't wait 'til the next one ... JP's hosting was out of this world -- the poets were awesome and the entertainment was on point. KUDOS -- to BURROWSINK ...!!!

~Hello everybody I had a blast hosting FREAK NASTY last night. You guys was amazing. PLEASE take the time out and friend me here on FACEBOOK or evern better yet got to my site http://instigatedtalk.ning.com/

~Dude, the host was a beast at Freak Nasty

~I enjoyed it all of it hit me up the next time i can bring more people

~There are no words....

~hhmm ... WOW ... GREAT ... WOW ... OMG ... Did she just do that .. LOL .. well .. U HAD TO BE THERE!!!

~There are no words to adequately describe it-if u missed it tough ISHT - it was off the chain - call it FREE!!! LOL

~WELL, JUST ONE WORD "PHENOMENAL" ( I LOVED IT! )

~Ainsley, Burrows inc. did an excellent job!! I don't even care that I only got three hours sleep and came to work today. It was well worth it. I forgot to mention that the lesson you gave, and you know what lesson I am talking about, left me speechless!! I loved it! Hope you can return....

~WE WANT MORE!!!!!!

~Oh man...Ainsley I had a blast! I was telling everybody about it! JP...u were HILARIOUS! I was in tears! It was so well worth it. My pics will be up soon! Hahaha.

~Great show Ainsley and Sabrina! Packed house and great performers (as always). That MC was awesome! I just want to have a party now so I can hire him to make me laugh. My stomach muscles got a workout from his very informative "skit". :-)

~Wow, great show!!!! Don't spend the dollar I threw at you all in one place, lol..You were a GREAT host!!!!

Keep your eyes and ears tuned to the wire to find out when the next Freak Nasty will be :)