Q-Tip & Mark Ronson present “Long Live the King! A Birthday Celebration for Michael Jackson” at the NOKIA Theatre NYC

By: Johanna V.

Last night, on what would have been Michael Jackson’s 51st birth­day,  Q Tip, Mark Ron­son, and DJ Spinna held a birth­day cele­bra­tion for The King of Pop at the Nokia Thea­tre in Times Square, NYC.

From the minute I wal­ked in the energy in this place was crazy.  Pac­ked wall to wall with all types of peo­ple dan­cing and sin­ging in their MJ tees and shiny glo­ves.  There is no doubt that Q-Tip and Mark Ron­son had the crowd com­ple­tely enth­ra­lled last night.  I com­mend Mark Ron­son for being strong and giving us a great per­for­mance des­pite the recent loss of DJ AM which was one of his best friends.

Most memo­ra­ble moments were Quincy Jones calling in live, Tip brin­ging Marsha from Flo­wetry on stage for “but­ter­flies”, Mark Ron­son tal­king about DJ AM, and the fun­niest moment was Q-Tip and the whole venue doing the ELECTRIC SLIDE! LMAO! It was nothing but love in there!

Michael Jack­son and DJ AM may no lon­ger be here but they will defi­ni­tely never be forgotten.

My Inspiration of Positive Aspects…

By: Johanna V.

[Ban­ner will go here]

Today is one of those days where I try to focus on all the posi­tive aspects of my life and remind myself that without fai­lure or disap­point­ment from time to time, the suc­ces­ses and joys wouldn’t be as sweet and rewarding.

Below is a poem from The Prophet by Kah­lil Gibran, which is one of my all time favo­rite books.

On Joy and Sorrow

Your joy is your sorrow unmas­ked.
And the self­same well from which your laugh­ter rises was often­ti­mes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The dee­per that sorrow car­ves into your being, the more joy you can con­tain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was bur­ned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spi­rit, the very wood that was hollo­wed with kni­ves?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrow­ful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are wee­ping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is grea­ter thar sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the grea­ter.“
But I say unto you, they are inse­pa­ra­ble.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remem­ber that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are sus­pen­ded like sca­les bet­ween your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at stands­till and balan­ced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his sil­ver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.