Firenze, Bon Giorno!!

Florence, I love you ;>

I'm back ya'll. Well, been back for a couple days now but I gotta let you know what fun it was.
Three days and three nights of art, music, films, food, fun, and laughter. Federico, Lorenzo, Laura, Marco, Riccardo, were all gems. These were the coordinators of this great event... DigiFestival.

Festival della Creativita and DigiFestival... at the Fortezza da Basso
(a fortress, ooh ;>)

The whole thing was a big ball of art exploration on the ancient grounds of Fortezza da Basso. Every day people from all over would come to engulf themselves in art and creativity. At night they would loosen up and have dance parties and live shows. The bar was open the whole time so you know we were feeling good ;> I loved it. I learned so much. I absorbed so much and met so many talented people. I networked and promoted my music and other talents. While in the process I had the great luck of being interviewed by MTV Italia. They asked me about all sorts of things; my music and video, what creativity means to me, what inspires me, who I've worked with, etc. I love doing interviews like that. It really gives an artist a chance to let the people know how they work and what's in their minds. It will air this weekend in Italy.

I'm growing so much I could hardly keep up with myself.

Florence is such a beautiful city and ofcourse the birth place of the legendary Michael Angelo Buonarroti, whom I am even more inspired by now then when I went to Rome and saw the Sistine Chapel. My mother and I visited the Duomo, Baptistry, and the Campanile; basically an overwhelming three part church that stands in the center of town that was built over two centuries ago. It was absolutely beautiful. How do we make such amazing things as humans? ...I dunno.
We also saw the "Old Bridge", which was even old at its birth, haha, and we walked through what they call "The center of Town" which is where all the shops and restaurants in the Piazza's were. I had the pleasure of having Endemix DJ of Radio Mialno and Giampiero of DrownedMadonna.com (at seperate times) accompany me and mom. They gave us the native tour of the city filling us in on the history of certain areas and monuments. Italians really take pride in their culture and history.
Yay! Endemix! Yay! Giampiero! I was so glad to finally meet them. We connected even more in person then from email.
I miss them already :(

We (the digifestival family) enjoyed gourmet italian dinners, red wine, espresso, and ofcourse grappa every night. We took long walks through the city at night, and the occasional shopping in the piazzas.
We were attahced at the hip, lol ;>

On the night of the Award ceremony we all got dressed casually cute and snazzy and put our best foot forward to make a good impression on the audience when called on stage to receive our awards. I think it was my first time being able to thank everyone in public. Afterwards we enjoyed a live show by the Bohagey Bowes and then Amanda Baker and then other performers then went off to dinner. No, I didn't get a chance to perform this time but I know Federico will be sure to have me perform next year. Gotta give some love to Italy!

Well, that was it. I had a great time. My mom had an exceptionally great time and now we're back in the US doing our do. Back to reality and on the hustle once again. I don't trip though cause I know that won't be the last of the surprises.

To DigiFestival, Thank you all so much for showing me such a great time! I know I'll be back soon and we'll be able to party for real.

To everyone that made the video happen, Thank you so much for your time and support and faith in me, and especially all your votes. None of this could be possible without you.
Mom, Carlos, Daphnee (Johann), Jack OAT, Billy Crawford, Anthony Honn, Tim Lowery of Desert Rock Ent., T-Rock, Zae Northy, Galen Hooks, Gabe, Cassidy, Kaz, Maryss from Paris, Larry Jarah Sims, Nana Ikegami, Dan Rodriguez, Jose Guillermo and all the friends, family and fans that voted.

Salute, Ciao!!!!
R.

P.S. you can check out the pics here on my website, on my myspace, or at digifestival.net. Enjoy!

EndemixDJ

Talk about a true, die hard, loyal fan. I HEART ENDEMIXDJ ;>
I woke up this morning thinking about him. I don't know why but I just had to give him some love on my blog. This guy has supported me from the beginning of my music career. He was the first web radio station, well the first station ever to play my music. "Pressure" was the song he fell in love with and played endlessly in rotation and he continues to spin my other songs as well. Hah, right now "Shut It Down" is getting all the love.

I just wanna say, " I LOVE YOU ENDEMIX AND YOU'RE THE GREATEST!!!"

PEOPLE GO CHECK OUT HIS STAION-http://www.gproduction.it/radiomilano.html

MUAH ;>
CIAO!

CHUCK AND LARRY?... NOT

Yeah, so I went to see 'I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry' and was surprised to "not" see my dance scene in the movie. Damn Hollywood, editing shit out... whatever. I was so disappointed :( Well, they did show my boy Michael from Madonna and Artem from "So You Think You Can Dance", they played the two gay football players dancing in the circle at the gay costume party Chuck and Larry went to. Yeah, my scene was me dancing with another girl, our role was the "hot lesbian duo", hahaha hollywood, but anyways we had a cute duo in the circle and Chuck and Larry were looking at us trying to pick up our dance moves. That scene was featured in the promo trailor before they came out with I guess "the real trailor" later on. Well whatever I got my check. Let's see what other movie I could hop in.

Oh yeah, if you want to see me dancing in another movie about 3 or 4 years ago go check out 'Love Don't Cost A Thing' starring Nick Cannon and Christina Milian. I played a drill team dancer. You get some real good shots of me dancing. Wow, but it was a long time ago so I don't really look much like I do today. I was a bit more chubbier and had red, short, curly hair, hahahahaaaaa. Also, for all you Madonna fans go see 'I'm Going To Tell You A Secret'. Its a documentary on The Re-Invention Tour. There's a lot of scenes from the concert in there. She sucks... she didn't put out a concert dvd for that show. HELLO!! It was the greatest hits tour why wouldn't you put out a dvd??!!! Well, I know she's a smart business woman and she probably had a good reason for doing that.... lets see maybe cause she might want to sell it to you guys for a crazy amount of money 10 years from now and call it a limited edition or collector's item, hahahaaa!! ;D

"Hollywood... La La La La La La La Hollywooooodddd"

LIVE EARTH

I got issues.
issues with a many thing
a many good
a many bad
a many right for us
but not really
i love you AL Gore
for the effort
i love you true artists
for your might
i hate you industry
for the the fright
and that you'll never given in to whats right
for the fast cars, the bling,
the flights around the world
all the wonderful STUFF i could obtain with my platinum plastic thing

you make it really hard to live "the good life" without you

people wanna be good
wanna believe in the cause
but we're also so comfortable in our multi functional, gas guzzling cars
you make us fight and strive for whats right
but then spoon feed us what we don't want to bite
can i love you oh great cause?
i do too much
which is why im caught up in all this fuss
fuss about
i wanna change the world
i wanna change our luck
our fate of the future
our battle for the buck
im a constant contradiction
a lazy proletariat
an artsy-fart activist
a hopeless degenerate
lift me up
cause i wanna believe
that Live Earth, Live Aid, and whatever other awareness event there is out there will work for a world in vain.

R.

4th of July blues

4th July came around so soon this year. A time for family and friends to celebrate the birth of our country's freedom. Whether it be celestial park events and fireworks or a quiet, peaceful dinner with prayer at home, either way most people in America are enjoying this day. My family had a blast at the park in each other's company. Talking, and laughing, and swimming and eating, and watching fireworks. There was a whole gang of them. From first generation to third. I heard them enjoying the whole day together. It makes me recognize and appreciate the importance of family and that no matter what goes down they will always be there for you. (sniff, sniff, tear...oh family)
Unfortunately, I was all the way on the other side of the country curled up on my couch watching movies in the dark with a terrible stomach virus. So you could just imagine how I felt when they would call me every couple hours to tell me how much fun they were having, woo hoo, glad I'm there. I'll just pull my barf bucket closer and make friends.

Happy 4th!

"Shut It Down"- who could this be, hhmmm??? ponder

Being Recognized

Do you like being spotted, recognized, pointed out?
Do you ever wonder what goes through people's mind when they've spotted someone that made an impact on them?


Today, someone spotted me. He asked me if I was a dancer for Andre 3000. I said yeah but I was bald then and that was a few years ago. How did you notice me with all this hair? He said, "when you were walking in you were laughing with whomever it was on the phone with you and when I saw your smile it instantly brought back a memory of this girl I saw on SNL with Outkast who was dancing for Andre 3000." "It was the "Hey Ya" song." I was like, NO WAY. He remembered me from that show. I mean it did rerun 3 or 4 times but you must have really loved Outkast to remember. He said yes he is a major Outkast fan but he couldn't forget a smile like mine. I said, are you sure, there was four of us dancing for him. He said," yeah i remember but you were the one with the shaved head." He said that it was so cool for him to see a beautiful black girl with a shaved head dancing for Outkast. I told him i did think it was pretty crazy that Outkast hired me to dance for them and I was bald... but I guess that is Outkast, hahaha.
Anyways, I thought that was pretty cool and I wanted to share it with you.

Good Day ;>