Have you ever experienced a moment when you managed to glimpse a clear view of yourself? Your true self?

If you've had the experience you'd know what I'm referring to right now. It's a strange sensation. Startling. Everything else sort of fades into the background and the only thing you see is... you.

I've had this experience several times in my life. It's always fun and by "fun" I mean indescribably exhilarating and frightening.

One of the most amusing examples occurred at Cafe Wha? in New York City. The only thing I recall about the band my cousin and I had the pleasure of experiencing was the fact that it was led by Cheryl Pepsi Riley and she made that song, "Thanks for My Child" and that they had a great Irish drummer dude. Oh, and the guest vocalist had an incredible voice and really didn't need the mic to be heard in the venue.

That's all I remember about the live music experience because it wasn't the high point of the evening for me. The high point of the evening was the discovery of my true self... again... in an unusual setting.

I'll explain.

Cafe Wha? is a cramped venue. They have a stage and tables for eating the food they serve, etc, all together in that cramped space. Everybody was rocking out to the music, enjoying their food and--dare I say--dancing in the single, narrow aisle used for the exit, the serving of food, entry to the restrooms, etc.

In the midst of the revelry, excitement and joy all I could think was, "Do they have a cabaret license?" Of course, this led to other thoughts such as fire codes, the rights clearance on the music they were performing and the bane of all live music venues: noise ordinance!

Sigh.

My face was broadcasting something unrecognizable, prompting my cousin to inquire, "What's the haps?"

In a whisper, I said, "I don't think they have a cabaret license..."

"Probably not," she quipped in her legal secretary monotone drone.

The idea that Cafe Wha? did not possess a cabaret license was only of interest to her because "cabaret license" could be something that she might have to type in correspondence one day. It was of interest to me because I was thinking of ways to get the venue in compliance.

My cousin is a legal secretary. I'm an attorney.

Do you recognize yourself when you manifest?

Jill expands on the meaning of "Golden"



During my adventure in Seattle, Jill Scott blessed Benaroya Hall with her presence and considerable talent in a live performance that exceeded everyone's expectations to the point of stunned silence.

Just to give you an idea of how she shares her talent, she appeared on stage in a denim button down shirt, a fish-tail skirt and short boots with the beginnings of the afro she's rocking in this video. The afro she's sporting here is the product of a hair dryer. On the night of the Benaroya Hall performance, it was au natural. The make-up was understated earth tones. Gorgeous and casual... in Benaroya Hall. That's where the philharmonic performs. She was dressed casually... with an afro.

She opened the show with an up-tempo arrangement of "The Way". Imagine if the Red Hot Chili Peppers covered "The Way".

The crowd was stunned.

She gave them a speech similar to the one she delivers in this video about how she's an artist and she knows that they want to hear the music exactly as it sounds on the album but she's expressing herself and we were all there for art, etc.

Stunned silence.

An incredible talent. Not a shred of propriety. Gorgeous. I was grinning the entire show.

She wrote that song "He Loves Me" about the guy she married, Lyzel. It was a big, chart topping single and then... she dumped him.

It just goes to show you that art is not the same as life. It's like a photograph.

She must give that lecture about art before every performance.

Devoid of USB support, OSX and riddled with custom downloadable applications, Steve Jobs and co opted to "ship" iPad. When you "ship" the product that means you couldn't be bothered with the rest of the features. There's a technical specification document somewhere with a bunch of stuff that just didn't get done. You just wanna get it to market already and the like and so forth and whatnot and things of that nature.
 
Brilliant strategy.

Pricing
At $499 for the stripped-down, wi-fi only version and $829 for the tricked out model with 3G through a strategic partner, it's tech market genius. It's gotta service plan option. Oh, sweet fancy moses. For $29.99/mo you can surf the web as much as like whilst looking at a crisp, vibrant display.

Web
No Flash support. Score! All of the Apple devotees are not fussed on such things. Evangelize Quicktime.

Peripherals (Or lack thereof)
With no USB, memory card reader and--brace yourself--no camera the iPad is not for kids! Already linked with big content providers like Conde Nast and NY Times and a non-exclusive 30/70 pricing deal that undermines Kindles 50/50 exclusivity requirement, the iPad has a clearly defined market. Those characteristics make the strategy obvious enough but with a battery life of over ten (10) hours, can you say "trans-atlantic flights"? The iPad is for... "grown-ups".

Oh, that's not all. That's to say nothing of the 30-pin port and optional Apple expansion thingy-ma-doos that you can purchase separately and repeatedly. It does just enough to move units in copious numbers.

It's probably one of the most astute market share strategies ever implemented.

Not so good for Kindle.

Rosie O'Donnell and Kelli Carpenter got divorced and I was completely unaware of it. There's no excuse for this kinda snafu. They're not allowed to get divorced because they started a cruise line for families with same-sex parents and everyone is counting on them to get the equal marriage thing going in this country... and... well, geez... they're not allowed to get divorced!

Of course, everyone knows that the divorce trend in this country is over 50% and it's no different for gay couples but considering the difficulty in adopting and everything else you can think of that would pose an obstruction to the formation of viable family for same-sex couples, the demise of that particular relationship is a loss to the movement.

It's always a dangerous thing when you characterize individual human relationships as symbolism for political agendas--regardless of how meritorious--but in a country that pervasively perceives the gay community as synonymous with the flambouyant costumes of any number of gay pride events and ultra-creative club kids, Rosie's and Kelli's introduction by way of Rosie's brother (also gay), a colleague of Kelli's, brings the blessed boringness of gayness to the fore. Hooray! Their messy home, avalanche of finger-painting and arts and crafts experiments, Kelli's avoidance of the web cam during Rosie's "always-on" phase and the overwhelming seeming blah of their life was so inspiring.

Actually, in the same way that their blah-ness was inspiring, their divorce is also sort of inspiring. Right? No, it's not. Hee hee. It's not inspiring. It sucks for gay people and I think that Rosie should apologize to everyone for making gay people seem as fucked up as straight people, getting divorced and shit.