Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Cesar Bass Romero @ Bal en Blanc 14
Ok I just couldn't resist one more post about Bal en Blanc. I was looking for some music from Cesar Romero today and I came across this video him spinning at Bal en Blanc.
Cesar Romero was spinning in the House room when we walked into the party and this video was taken from someone on the DJ stage just shortly after we entered the room. You can get a good feeling from the video the style of music and the energy of the crowd in the room.
I really hate not having my own photos and videos from an event like this. I think somehow in the full body security pat-down they would have noticed my camera, oh well, maybe I'll figure out a way before next year. Cheers!
Well we’re back from our first trip to Montreal’s Bal en Blanc or White Party and I only have 1 word to describe it … Amazing! The people of Montreal sure know how to throw one hell of a party. Except for the weather (20 degree daytime highs / 9 degree nighttime lows with snow & ice still on the ground) I would honestly have to say that I actually enjoyed Bal en Blanc much better then Black & Blue in 2006. Justin and I joined Philip, Jamie and Jamie’s friend Mike for the event. I don't have any photos of the actual Bal en Blanc event because unfortunatly flash cameras are not permitted into the event.
We arrived in Montreal on Saturday morning, checked into our hotel and then headed out to Rue Sainte-Catherine to do some shopping and have a few drinks along the way. On Saturday night we headed over to Unity to do some dancing from 10 PM - 2 AM and then ended up at Stereo around 2 AM to open it up for after hours. Justin and I stayed at Stereo and danced our asses off until around 7 Am before heading back to the hotel.
After catching a few hours of sleep we got ready and headed over to the Montreal Convention Center (Le Palais des congrès de Montréal) for the main event of the weekend, Bal en Blanc. I knew going into this there was going to be 2 separate rooms, the house room and the trance room, and in my mind I envisioned a pretty big room, about the size of the Palm Springs Convention Center, with a smaller room off to the side. My vision couldn't’t have been more off.
After the long line and total of 1.5 hour wait to get through the line, coat check and finally security we were standing in the center of what almost appeared to be a huge warehouse room at about Midnight. It was almost like a fair because this center room contained several vendor booths, information, a large massage area, and bars. I looked to the right and a few hundred feet from where I was standing I saw the lights coming from the entrance to trance room which spanned the entire right side of the room. I was a little overwhelmed because the size of that room appeared to be much larger then what I expected. Then someone said … “That’s the Trance room, let’s check out the house room first” I then turned my head to the left and another few hundred feet to the left were more lights and music. The house room in itself was probably a little larger than the Palm Springs Convention Center and this was the smaller of the two rooms. Honestly I was completely blown away at the size of this event and the number of people. I was told the event typically draws a crowd of 15-20k people.
The event itself was a mixed event with maybe 15-20% gay, but the best part of Montreal is that the people don’t really seem to care if your gay, straight or anything else. We spent most of the night in the house room dancing, kissing & hugging alongside of straight couples, lesbians and other gay men. Everyone in that place was f’d up on something and there are certainly some beautiful people in Montreal.
The lineup for us in the house room was first Caesar Romero, Cedric Gervais, David Guetta, Offer Nissim and ending with Victor Calderone. Justin and managed to hop over to the main room a few times to check out Ferry Colrsten and Armin Van Bururen. I have to say overall the music was amazing except for David Guetta and Offer Nissim. David Guetta started out alright, but by the end of his 3.5 hour set I think we were all ready for Offer to come on because David was just mixing too many different things together with electronic sounds and it was giving all of us a headache. Offer came on and we were expecting to see yet another Offer Nissim greatest hits concert, which would have been fine for our moods at the time, but that was not what he played. Frankly I don’t know what the hell it was that he played but it was terrible. The music was all over the place with weird dropouts, clips of song pieces in what seemed to be inappropriate places. Honestly Offer was a complete trainwreck. While I really love Offer Nissim's music, this is the 3rd time I've heard him spin live and I think we all agree that he just needs to stop with the live performances and stick to his own remixes. We were glad to have Victor Calderone come on to finish up the party. Victor never seems to disappoint, his music was typical Victor and he was really working to crowd to get everyone motivated again.
Around 11AM we were all pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel to get a few hours of sleep before our 3 PM checkout and flights back home. It was a great weekend, and if you get the chance I would highly recommend checking out the Bal en Blanc sometime, it’s defiantly worth the trip to Montreal and the price of admission to the party. Cheers!
I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately ...
happiness: the quality or state of being happy; enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy; good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.
After having many lengthy discussions with my friends regarding our lives, relationships and other topics, it always comes down to the fact that everyone these days seems to be focused on what defines happiness and actually being happy themselves.
I've given this a lot of thought and I've come to the conclusion that the state of being happy is not really a final destination in itself, it coincides more with the entire journey. At some point in time nearly everyone should reach some state of happiness, however that's not to say that once that state is reached it's never lost. In reality, it's all too quickly lost and sometimes very difficult to find again. Only through introspection, perseverance and dedication can the individual steps for reaching this state be discovered and can the actual state of happiness itself be reached more frequently then not.
I went through a slightly dark time in my life many years ago to which I look back on now as a significant defining time in my life. It was a transitional time for me, a time where I felt I no longer had many close friends, I was newly single and living in a new city, struggling for money, and essentially alone. I had some fleeting moments of happiness but overall I wouldn't look back on that time and say I was happy. I eventually settled into my new life, met some great friends and even met Justin. I was surely on the right track to happiness at this point right? One would think so, but when I reassess that time now, I would say that I was merely content, because I had not truly discovered what was necessary for me to be happy. I will never forget the time when my friend Bernard and I were talking and he said to me "your biggest challenge in life will be to find what it is that will truly make you happy!" That statement always resonated with me for years following that conversation, which finally prompted me to do some philosophical reading and really look deep into myself and figure out what it was that was holding me back from true happiness.
Over the past few years I've really challenged myself, changed my thought process, my outlook on life, my goals and my expectations of not only myself but of others, and I've realized how to reach that state of happiness more often then not. If someone came up to me today and asked "Are you happy?" I would reply "Most definitely yes!" That's not to say my life doesn't have it's ups and downs, after all as I said before, I still believe it's about the journey not the destination.
I won't tell anyone what it is that I discovered that makes me happy because it's truly a personal thing that's unique to each and every individual and something each person has to discover on their own for themselves. There certainly is no set equation that everyone can apply such that (A + B = Happiness), that's just not practical. The key to happiness is not a one size fits all garment and cannot be distributed to the masses. The key almost always lies within yourself and is most often independent of friends, family and society. I've discussed this with other people and they almost always miss the point. I've heard comments like "That person pretends to be happy but I really don't think they are" or "I don't really agree what that person is doing and I think their happiness is just a facade." The problem with these statements is that you cannot look to other people and their actions to form a basis in which to determine your own happiness or even judge their happiness. Happiness is an individual state and not open for direction, judgement or criticism by others. What makes one person happy may not necessarily make you happy, so again it falls back to the fact that each person has to come up with their own personal equation for happiness.
People are unique. Unique in personalities, thinking, desires, morals, goals and values. Even among groups of friends, this uniqueness is what keeps us all from being a bunch of robots. If you can agree that we're all individually unique from each other in so many traits why would you think that we wouldn't also be unique in what makes us each individually happy. I like to use a an example that's near and dear to my own happiness. Attending a circuit party. While thinking about going to a circuit party may actually bring a smile to my face it may to someone else bring forth the though of terror or even disgust. For me the thoughts are about all the great people, the music, feeling emotionally connected to a tribe, and hanging out with my friends. It's these thoughts that make me happy. For someone else they may fear crowds, they may hate dancing, they might not enjoy the music and even be a loner. For this person, what makes me happy, and so many others may actually be something that does the opposite. Now who is right or wrong in this scenario? Am I right to say a Circuit Party makes me feel happy so it must be something that makes everyone happy, or is this other person right in saying a Circuit Party makes me miserable so it's not something anyone should use to associate with a state of happiness. Neither actually, the problem here is actually trying to incorrectly classify someone's path to happiness as right or wrong which is actually something that's very individual. Individual paths to happiness may be right for one and wrong for another, but it doesn't make the event or action either right or wrong in itself.
Because happiness is the ultimate road trip throughout life, there are many paths to achieve it. Just like a real road trip where many different roads can be taken to get to a destination, it's not really about how you get there, rather it's more about the answer to the question of "Was the way you got there the right way for you?" Think about it and trust me when I say that if you dig deep enough you'll figure out what it is in life that makes you happy. Cheers.
Yes the rumors are true ... After nearly 7 years with SprintPCS and several different Palm Treo smartphones, I finally gave in and made the switch to AT&T and picked up an iPhone. I figured I would let all my friends be the early adopters this time around before I took the plunge. I have to say I'm quite thrilled at the moment. Cheers!
*UPDATE* I posted this in my comments but thought it might be good to include it on the main post for anyone who is curious. The iPhone does integrate with and full 2-way sync with Outlook. It's done using iTunes as the middleware connector application. When you setup up your iPhone in iTunes, you choose where you would like to sync contacts, calander and even email from. Outlook is fully supported. I'm personally using Outlook 2007 and when I setup and sync'd my iPhone today for the first time, it immediatly downloaded all of my contacts and appointments from Outlook. I also tried the reverse by adding and editing contacts on the iPhone, and it added the new contact and made the changes to Outlook.
Yes that's right this coming weekend is Easter weekend which means only one thing. Justin and I will be headed up with Philip and Jamie to Montreal to participate in Montreal's 14th Annual Bal en Blanc or White Party.
It's a mixed event and should prove to be nothing less then another fun weekend in Montreal. It's going to be a short trip as we're leaving Phoenix on a red eye flight getting into Montreal Saturday morning, and then returning back to Phoenix on Monday night. Justin enough time for a few drinks, the party and a little sightseeing. I'm glad to be going back to Montreal again, but hopefully the next time I'll be able to spend more time there. Cheers & Happy Easter!
Yeah I'm a little bored with the whole online experience these days. I guess it's because my life has been so jam packed that the last thing I want to do or for that matter have time to do is sit online. Most of the time I'm sitting in front of a computer it's usually work related. I find little interest in wanting to spend time blogging or even web surfing these days. I was looking at my site the other day and all I could think of was how bored I was with the design and layout, but I simply don't have the energy to even think about re-engineering the site at this point.
I used to use my site as a means of technical skill development and learning, however since I'm in a purely technical role these days with my consulting business I find no need to be doing technical things for myself after hours. I'm content finishing up with work every day, taking a nap, spending some time with Berger and Justin, perhaps checking out some new music, and that's about it. Aside from my music interest, I really don't have much of a desire to be online anymore.
Me bugging Berger as he attempts to eat dinner
I guess bored with being online is a good thing because it's a testament to the fact that I'm living a fulfilling life, and am able to keep myself busy with more important things. Justin and I have a bunch of trips coming up and I'm really looking forward to detaching from the computer during them. Hopefully this whole thing is just a phase, but to be honest I wouldn't mind if it wasn't, because I'm still really happy with my life at the moment. Cheers!
So this is pretty much it, the beginning of the Circuit Party season. I have a feeling this year is going to prove to be almost as busy as 2007 with Justin and I adding a few new trips to our agenda as well as keeping some familiar favorites on the schedule.
2007 One Mighty Weekend Pool Party, Orlando, Florida
In as little as three weeks, over Easter Weekend, Justin and I are going to be headed up to Montreal for the Bal en Blanc or Montreal White Party. This will be our official kick off party of the season and is actually a last minute trip for us both. We weren't planning on going back to Montreal this soon however as a favor for helping out some friends, Justin and I were basically told we were being taken to Montreal to attend this party. I would normally protest because I never expect anything in return for helping out friends and I have this thing about people paying for my plane tickets, but the reservations were made and I was sent an itinerary before I even knew what was going on. Even though it's just for a quick weekend trip, I'm actually looking forward to going back to Montreal. It's a great city and the Bal en Blanc should be a new and fun event for us all.
2007 White Party Pool Party, Palm Springs, California
Following the Bal en Blanc we'll be headed out to Palm Springs again in April for the White Party Spring Break 2008. This will be our third year in a row attending this party. With Palm Springs being a quick 4 hour drive from Phoenix, it's almost a given that we'll attend.
The rest of the year should prove to be just as busy with Justin and I planning on going out to New York for a few days in early June before heading down to Orlando for One Mighty Weekend 2008. We'll then be headed over to Toronto for Toronto Pride in late June. At the end of July we'll be headed out to San Diego for San Diego Pride, Circuit Daze and the Zoo Party. I think we'll probably have a little bit of a break in August & September before we head out to Los Angeles in October to wrap up the party season on the Atlantis Mexican Riviera Cruise for another 9 day cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico.
It's funny because I'm already getting tired just looking at our calender, but to be honest I wouldn't have it any other way. I spent way too many years just sitting at home, and now Justin and I are taking every opportunity we can to get out, travel and have the time of our lives. The way I see it, you only live once so you better make the best of it right? Cheers!
I mean seriously why does the media have to always blow things so far out of proportion. Frankly who gives a shit if American Idol contestant David Hernandez was a gay stripper or not? Does it really matter one way or another? No it doesn't because it has no direct impact on his ability to sing.
I'm not a big American Idol fan, but I have caught a few episodes of it this season after a friend asked me if I recognized David Hernandez since he was from here in Arizona. I do happen to know who he is and I'll be the first one to admit that I've never been a big fan of David Hernandez ever since he made a rude comment to one of my friends and I one night at a bar here in Phoenix, but that doesn't take away from my ability to realize that he actually has some talent. I personally think David's actually done a pretty bang up job so far in what I've watched of his performances on American Idol.
2006 Photo I took at the former Burn Nightclub in Phoenix
Yes David Hernandez is from Phoenix, and yes David Hernandez has worked in several different predominantly gay bars here in the valley of the sun including the former Burn Nightclub, but I think the big issue here and why the media jumped on this story is because it's the old Straight vs. Gay debate and mainstream America just doesn't want to be force fed this sort of information about someone. Americans want to live in their little bubbles and believe in their wholesome values and think that the gays have no business on their TV sets. We'll I'm here to say that people need to get over it all because it's becoming so very tiresome.
I've been following this story with a little bit of interest for one main reason. I usually have the TV on in my office while I'm working, and I was sitting there first thing in the morning yesterday and I happened to hear a news story about David Hernandez and I look up to see one of the photos from my photo gallery on the television. In the past 24 hours I've seen the photos I've taken on the local news, CNN and Entertainment tonight. I mean seriously people, how about you just go and snag photos from my personal albums without even asking me first. Personally it doesn't matter to me because I'm so obviously open about my own life that I post nearly everything online and in my photo galleries, but I do find it a bit rude to just use my photos in the mainstream media without my permission.
I find all of this somewhat funny because I've had many conversations with friends regarding photographs at parties and events, and we've always speculated about the frequency of being snapped in other people's photographs which could possibly end up in random photo galleries all over the world. Again, It doesn't personally bother me, but I guess it might matter to other people like David who happened to be caught in one of my photos taken at Burn Nightclub in December of 2006. Let this be a major lesson to us all, don't ever let yourself be captured in a photograph anywhere you don't want to be seen, especially if you plan on being an American Idol contestant in the future.
I do think in the end, all this publicity is actually a good thing for David Hernandez because it gets his name out and makes him more recognizable among a sea of unknowns. I think David is talented and I think as singer he has the potential to go very far. After all this negative press, I'd actually love to see him win the completion and prove that none of this was even worth the story. Cheers.
How cute is my Mother, pictured with her cousin Joe Krempa in this photo taken at their First Holy Communion. Someone found this photo recently and sent it to my Mother last week.
I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this before but my Mother was actually a first generation American. My Grandparents were born in what was then known as Czechoslovakia but is now Slovakia or the Slovak Republic, and immigrated here through New York to Pennsylvania in the early 1900's. I wish back then European immigrants would have been more proud of their family heritage instead of pushing their children to be more 'American.' Because of this my Mother never fully learned how to speak Slovak, however my grandparents all spoke Slovak, Czech, Russian, Polish & Hungarian which disappointingly was not passed down to any of the children or grandchildren in my family.
