C. Hannibal visually speaking

Bootlegger’s Revenge

http://vimeo.com/17136608

One thing this video doesn’t mention is how this guy built his entire audience off of rapidshare.com and the like. He’s come a loooong way. Based on what he used to tell me in emails, his day starts at like 5 a.m. or something. An Internet hustler with a Master’s and a day job.

He doesn’t drink or do drugs, but he does puff menthols pretty heavy.  Somehow or another he convinced me to write for him after seeing my nonsense writing on his forum.  And that’s how I got into the writing game. If you like what I write, or you don’t, thank this bum for showing me the light.

P.S. Gotty, you still a sucker. LOL.

C. Hannibal digital media, visually speaking

Anatomy of Catching an L

Marion Jones photo via http://bit.ly/fx456f

I’m sharing here my pain at catching an L. A loss. We’re running out of semester over here at the Uptown Vatican of journalism. I’ve fought to survive, but it hasn’t been without one or several defeats along the way. I’m learning to respect these deadlines more. Break them when I can, but nonetheless grind until my fingers bleed and my eyes go blurry from too much screen staring. It’s rough, it’s a way of life. It’s called a “calling”. Whatever that means. All I know is that it’s not funded so well.

For this class on catching an L in digital media, a/k/a This is NOT how we Duy take a look at exhibit A and B of an assignment I’ve been trying to get right for almost a month. The job: produce a video about a high school that was listed to close. Outcome: questionable.

A. My second attempt. Okay. No excuses son. This is pure sewage in the sense of professional work. I’m playing the student card through all three-and-a-half minutes. I want to come back to this in less than a year and laugh, because I’ll be so dope by then. Let’s pray. Then watch.

Continue reading “Anatomy of Catching an L” →

C. Hannibal concerts, cultural history, mexican culture, music

Narco Corridos Uptown

Larry Hernandez at Club Luna in the Bronx last month.

This guy brought his narco corrido flavor to East Coast in late November. I heard this one, from a different group, on Saturday night filming some video footage in Washington Heights with Manny Wheels. It was for our updated digital media piece that I mentioned in a previous post.
We’re looking at narco corridos and their increased presence on the local Mexican off-the-radar dance circuit here in N.Y.

Not to give too much away right now, but the party ended before its expected 3:30 a.m. time, because some knuckleheads sprayed the front of the party location with bullets, hitting one kid in the leg. Someone got jumped and the response was to spray half a block with lead. No one else was hurt.
While a sonidero was playing (they rocked everything at that party from bachatta to ranchera to groupero to tropical), I saw a kid walk up to him and send some shouts to Sureño 13. I don’t know if it was him or his click who participated in the shooting. It really messed up a good night, though. I’m not trying to draw any real parallels between narco corridos and the shooting, although it’s possible gang bangers were at the party to hear some. The fact is that part of Uptown is really hot right now, hot in the sense of crime and gangs and drugs…the stuff of poor not-yet-fully-gentrified areas.

**UPDATE: I just got a call back from one of the security guards who works these types of events (allegedly, the Ecuadorian and Mexican public and private party circuit in N.Y. has a high demand for security).  He confirmed that a young guy was shot in the leg Saturday night, and said it stemmed from a beef between local Mexican gangs whose turf is divided along 155th St.

Los Traviesos were set tripping on a guy who rolls with Los Cholos. Neither had anything to do with the party (they like to wait outside for family, friends, rivals or girls I’m told. But maybe they were causing trouble because they couldn’t afford the $6 Modelos, or $5 waters that were being sold. Oops, I forgot to mention the ridiculous markup at this and many local events like this. I have to say I’m a little critical. Just because there’s a monopoly on these “authentic” spaces for Mexican regional music culture in N.Y., promoters don’t have to engañar la gente.

We were all set to check out the Grupo Illegales, which is an outfit that was supposed to play a song called “500 balazos”. Instead we got a hyper-authentic Norteño group called Conjunto Dinamico. Some cats from Chihuahua.
They opened their set with speedy Norteño jams before moving into the narco corridos, which really started to get the dance floor (gym floor!) packed.
Their youtube presence gives you an idea of how they get down:

Though they play a variety of music, they say the narco corridos are a must to please the crowd. Even though this is mostly music that tells stories of drug cartel life, it’s been a boon to the career of newer singers such as Larry Hernandez from Culiacan. One of his earliest albums was explicitly called “16 Narco Corridos”. He was recently in Neuva York. He played club Luna in the Bronx (check out a snippet, here). He puts some pretty revealing things on his Twitter feed:

While doing research for the piece I came across the always pretty grisly Blog del Narco.
If you look in the top, right corner of the site you’ll see a link to youtube video. It’s not a video of chopped-off heads like you’ll find in the blog’s forum, but a group music video. What I know is the future of narco corrido as envisioned in this track “C A R T E L E S U N I D O S”

It’s gangster music, but with accordions and the smell of a promoter who knows violence sells. (Download a mixtape, here)

Larry Hernandez photos via: http://twitpic.com/photos/larryhernandez1

C. Hannibal mexican culture, music

Son of a Pitch

 

One thing I hate about having a Jersey accent is that when I speak face-to-face with one of the more WASPY-looking editors, and tell them I have a couple pitches to send them, they usually tell me they don’t edit photos.

Mid-Atlantic accents aside, there’s this growing frustration with just getting a pitch accepted by folks up in here. Someone turned up the “son of a pitch” dial on the J school toughness meter or something. The photo above is a show flyer for one of the many, many Mexi-inspired noches de baile, or dance hall events, that are similar to the ones that pop up around the 5 boroughs on a nearly weekly basis. Great story I thought! I’m from Jerz man, I know how “new” this is, compared with L.A. or Arizona.  We’ll go to a show or two and  knock this out tight little video for DM.

Not so.

The first in the barrage or questions: How “new” is this scene?

Huh? It’s new to Sally down the street, I’m sure. She follows me on Twitter, she’ll watch the video if it’s good. New?

Little did I know this fuselage was coming:

How many concerts has [been] held? Where?  What kinds of crowds? How big?

What are you planning to shoot?

Have you developed a pre-script?

What access do you have to bands, concerts, the venues?

What about the talent?

Hold it, hold it, hold it…..I’m just talking about shooting cats as they pick guitars, sing in Spanish and wear matching uniforms with cowboy boots. What’s really good with the 20 Qs? But they kept coming…

How many clubs host Norteño music?

What neighborhoods?

How often?

Are there more than 5 years ago?

Have you done reporting to document this change?

How many bands play in the subway?

Have you asked the MTA how many have permits?

ALRIGHT. I get it. Enough.  Back to the grind.

C. Hannibal cultural history

L.A. O.G. J.C.

Even though he drops “Internet” and “new media” like they were these ill loaded words, J.C., or John Carroll as I called him to his face and to others around the office, is one of the last great newspaper editors. Sure, David Simon, the creator of The Wire says nothing nice about the man. So why do I think he was so great?

Mainly because he chatted me up on one of those days I was having. He invited me to sit down at the table with him in his big ass glass office there on Spring Street, and chopped it up with me. What surprised me was the care he took in reading my entire resume.

“Star-Ledger, huh?” he asked me. “Good paper.” I didn’t tell him that that story about the dead strawberry made me kick the reporting habit even before I was out of college.

“TV? Is that really what you want to do?” He asked that with a bit of disgust when he caught I did that little Channel 5 internship. I shook my head. I’m not into broadcast like that.

If you take a long look at the video above, this is J.C. in his late hey-day just several years ago. When I just got out to L.A. and he was running tings! He talks BIG-business in this piece. I think he knew the downward spiral was in effizect at this point. God bless him for believing in this trade. Just a couple of highlights from the vid: He goes in on Arnold around 23:05. He straight quotes Malcolm X around 36:49, but in the context of renewed interest in reporting after 911. Cold piece of work.

C. Hannibal digital media, visually speaking

This Is How We Duy: Deadlines, Deadlines, Deadlines….

This is my second draft for all intents and purposes (a.k.a all intensive purposes). This version of my NYC Biker gang ¨story¨ pushed deadline. No, broke it (I did give a heads up). That´s not how we Duy, so this is where it will reside. But please believe I will get a digital media associate, preferably L. Dubbs, to help me shape in into something uber dope. I think I´m closer to a story. Let me know what you think.

C. Hannibal buildings

Recap: This Is Halloween 4 Israel

Started out innocently enough. I saw a flier for a party near my beat, Sunset Park. Not really, though. It was Industrial City.  This little enclave of concrete, brick and old school manufacturing within good smelling range of the Gowanus. Actually, smack dab between the Gowanus and the BQE.

The flier mentioned it was a free warehouse party, which was all I needed to know. It was about a week before Halloween and I needed some free drinks in my system, even if it was mystery punch. On my way to the event, I noticed on the flyer I printed that there was a small box in the corner saying it was a benefit for Artists 4 Isreal. Okay. Not big deal, everyone is entitled to their political agenda.

When I arrived at the event, after walking down a long cobble stone industrial-rimmed street off 3rd Avenue, I walked up a short flight of steps and saw a large door with two young buxom ladies standing out front. They each had super sexy “Halloween costumes” on and held onto an iPad and mini keyboard. I figured they were asking people to sign up for something upon entering this free jump-off.

“$10 dollars please,” said the young lady. After making my ” Damn, I thought it was free,” face, I dropped the “I’m a reporter” line on her.

“Well it’s to benefit Artists 4 Isreal. Plus, we have free drinks.”

“Well, I’ won’t drink,” was my reply. I then stopped staring at her chest and strolled inside, camera in hand.

I didn’t really know what I was getting into. This was definitely some Brooklyn, hipster, arty, loft party. There were projections, pumpkins, half-nekked women with paint on them walking around. Hipsters. Thug hipsters. People who looked out of place. Someone collapsed and the medics were called in. I met a guy in a blue robe.

It was surreal to me for that section of Brooklyn. Nothing was really making sense. There was a lot of fitness in the room. I actually did sneak some punch, but believe me it didn’t compromise my ethics.

The dude in the blue robe, the coordinator of the event, and a distance relative of a famous lawyer called me over for a “photo op”. He was smashing pumpkins. No, not those Pumpkins.

It was some art intervention type thingy, only a dude in a yarmulke participated and OBAMA was written on one of the pumpkins. Damn, this was some real radical shit going on. Was I messed up for watching this and taking pictures? I was practicing my journalistic distance. Besides, he was letting me take pictures and I figured it would make for an interesting “check out what I saw” story.

Continue reading “Recap: This Is Halloween 4 Israel” →

C. Hannibal cultural history

This Is How We Duy: Keep It Story, Fam

I’d like to tell you a little story about trying to find stories for your J School beat.

Coming to Brooklyn, from Mexico City, one of the coolest topics I thought I could cover had to do with the Mexican population. Since I was in L.A. for so long, the idea of gangs and Mexican-American gang warfare was about as sexy a topic as I could muster as a young reporter. Of course, I wasn’t thinking about how utterly difficult it is to penetrate gangs (pause) and to get info that’s publishable.

While looking into gang activity in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where I lay my reporting claim to fame (I have yet to publish an SP-specific story!) I came upon a guy who runs a gang Website. Above, is an audio slide show I made. Three months after I made contact with dude, he sends me a text, inviting me to this event. An event that was basically a reunion party for potbelly, old school gangsters from NYC. Many of them walked with canes and others looked like grandpop’s who just didn’t want to give up the tough guy persona. Really reminded me of my late grandfather who walked around Newark, NJ dressed like a full-fledged cowboy. No chaps, but a cowboy hat, boots and a leather vest. He never shook that image, even when he had cancer.

So, I presents this video in class and it bombed! This is not how we Duy, said the instructor. Where’s your story? What’s the nut graph?

All my explanations were met with the Cheshire Cat eyes.

Cool topic, but no story. What is story? Everyone has their own explanation. It’s like rocket science. I’ll let you know when I find out, until then, look up Story + journalism + “how to tell” in google. Stick to the .edu sites.

One major component of my critique had to do with the fact that I wasn’t reporting anything new. Wait, what? I never heard of any biker gang reunion in BK. I googled the hell out of it. But my source did mention a guy named Bilal.

Was it Bilal from Pakistan who I worked with on my Business of Journalism presentation? Nah, prolly not.

Who is this mysterious Bilal?

Oh, THIS BILAL. The guy, like me, was scouring the web for cool stories about Sunset Park and found one. Here’s his video:

Is his video better than mine? A little bit. The lower-third info is good. He focuses on characters more. I learned a lot watching this guys video, after the fact.

I’m taking my original vid up top back to the drawing board. The suggestion: Focus on this as a STORY about how over the hill gangsters are using the online world and social media to reconnect, as opposed to sending out hits on each other.

Hmm. Something to think about. Stay tuned…..