#I would 100% watch a version of Warehouse 13 set in space

[nellied-reviews]

Box 953 Re-listen

Well, I got a bit side-tracked by life (seriously, I had to take an impromptu trip to a consulate!) but I am back, and just in time for episode 8 of Wolf 359:

Box 953

In which Eiffel finds a mysterious box, Hilbert really wants to avoid the quarterly talent show and Minkowski is the very model of a modern major general.

Sometimes I'm surprised by these episodes when I get back round to them. This one? Not so much. I think I actually remembered pretty much everything relevant about this episode, going into it: Eiffel is avoiding Minkowski, finds a mysterious box, the mysterious box gets blown up before we see what’s inside it.

And in general, I do like the episode a lot. It's funny, after all, and it does that thing that I'm noticing a lot on the re-listen where the show throws out a big weird mystery, then ends up dropping it with a theatrical shrug of the shoulders. It's a smart thing to do, because all of the unanswered questions ("Do those transmissions really come from Earth?", "There's a plant monster on the loose!", "What's with that weird voice?", "What's in the box?") could be answered in the future, but could just as easily not be. Sure, some of them are super important and interesting in hindsight. But burying the plot-relevant questions under a heap of less relevant but equally intriguing questions disguises them, and means that we're surprised when something like, say, that weird ghost voice comes back later on. Plus it creates the impression that the Hephaestus itself is a setting full of mysteries and weird things. Which is fun.

As we begin, though, all we know is that Eiffel, for whatever reason, is hiding from Minkowski in a store room. Why? Turns out, Minkowski is worryingly invested in their quarterly talent show, while Eiffel is... less than enthusiastic.

And look, I am easily pleased. The idea of the four crew members being forced to participate in a mandatory talent show is very funny to me. The fact that this is quarterly - and so they have, presumably, already suffered through several of them - makes me smile a lot. Eiffel and Hilbert being united in their dread of it? Awesome. I love it. Honestly, it makes me want to consume and/or write fanfic about the Hephaestus' previous talent shows, and the shenanigans that I just know must have been involved.

An another level, though, can we also stop to appreciate how seriously Minkowski takes it all? It's played for laughs throughout, sure, but I do like the fact that Minkowski is the sort of person to go all out and just unselfconsciously embrace the talent show. Her love of musical theatre is so joyful and pure, and I really appreciate it. I think, on some level, it even makes her a more interesting character; instead of going down the well-trodden "I'm a badass with a secret love of something cheesy, which I'm horribly embarrassed of" route, she goes for "I'm a badass with totally non-secret love of something cheesy, which I am totally open and unashamed of." It's a sign of self-confidence, I think, plus a reassuring reminder that Commander Minkowski, badass extraordinaire, nerds out just as hard as the rest of us. (Plus, you really can't be a fan of G&S and take yourself all that seriously, because come on...)

Anyway, the conversation Minkowski and Eiffel then have, and Eiffel's ensuing log entry is just enough to give some tantalising hints of what past talent shows have involved (smoke rings? poetry readings?) before Hilbert calls Eiffel, desperate to avoid the talent show. And his solution? Knock Minkowski out. Because it's Hilbert, so of course that's the answer. *Sighs*.

While Hilbert gets going with that, then, all that remains is for Eiffel to explore the store room. And while this isn’t super relevant, it is a great excuse for a Night Vale-style list of Improbable Weird Things. And seriously, pretty much every single object here is worthy of mention. We have eyeless Russian dolls straight out of a horror movie. We have letters to Santa, a revelation whose implications are both hilarious and baffling. We have Chekhov's cannon, which totally won't be relevant later in the episode.

And in among all this, Eiffel mentions Goddard Futuristics by name for the very first time, which actually surprised me. I thought they'd already come up, since in hindsight, they really do have their fingers in everything going on up on the Hephaestus, even in the first few episodes. But I guess this is their first official mention? And to be fair, I do remember assuming, early on, that this was a military mission. So this is probably the point where we are aware, for the first time, of the corporate context of it all, and the fact that it's Goddard who are basically running a for-profit private army here. Which is... fun.

The dystopian side of that is brushed aside here, though, in favour of just revelling in the out-there weirdness of all the stuff that Goddard have stored up on the Hephaestus. L-shaped Lego pieces? 3 suits of armour? The partial skull of megafauna specimen 58 "to be handled with a vague feeling of existential dread"? It's Warehouse 13, in space! 

It's also kind of heartening to see how excited Eiffel is by all this. Like, I know that he essentially got forced to go to space, but he really does have the sense of adventure for it. There's something very sweet about how not-jaded and enthusiastic Eiffel gets, as soon as he encounters something new. And then the plot thickens when he discovers the titular Box 953, which is reserved for Douglas Eiffel. What could possibly be in it? Eiffel, ever curious, is clearly desperate to know.

Before we find out, of course, we're interrupted by Hilbert, whose plan to knock Minkowski out has hone horribly wrong - he's just gotten her drunk. Even better, we get Minkowski's drunken rendition of "I am the very model of a modern major general" in the background during all of this, and kudos to Emma Sherr-Ziarko, because every single thing drunk!Minkowski says from here on out is amazing. From making pirate costumes, to nearly shooting Hilbert over ice cream, to the little hiccup she does, everything about Minkowski here is perfect and wonderful.

It doesn't distract Eiffel for long, though, and soon he's asking Hera what's in the box. She doesn't know, though, and actually can't access those files at all. Instead, she gets the message "Error, inappropriate security clearance", which is pretty creepy. It's the second time in as many episodes, after all, that we hear somebody who isn't Hera speaking through the Hephaestus, and it's a reminder of just how many secrets the station potentially holds. And so all we learn, in the end, is that Box 953 is weird. It's huge, and bolted in place, and it's cold to the touch. Plus it's making a heart beat kind of sound? It's at this point, I noticed, that the background music also cuts away, and we’re left with a weird crackling noise as Eiffel goes to open it. Spooky.

Every part of me was expecting this to be a Pandora's box-type scenario where Eiffel's opening the box would unleash something terrible and all hell would break loose. So when we hear something explode, it seems like confirmation of this... except when we cut back to Eiffel, several in-universe hours later, we learn that the problem wasn't Eiffel opening the box. In fact, Eiffel didn't manage to open the box; the explosion was from Minkowski setting off the cannon. It seems like a lot happened in the three hour gap in the recording (not least, Minkowski ended with burns and frostbite?) and as a result, Box 953 was lost to the vacuum of space. Bummer.

And then that's it. Episode over. Everyone is safe and well, and the station is fine. But we don't learn what was in the box, and I don't think it really come up again? I googled it, and I think I saw a suggestion that it's the simulation-y machine from Change of Mind? But I don't remember the connection really being commented on, and even then it doesn't explain why it's specifically Eiffel's name on the box now. Like... what situation would Command have been expecting him to use it in? Why? How? So many questions, all of them unanswered!

And I suppose that's fine, at the end of the day. I enjoyed this episode, I loved the talent show idea, and I didn't mind the weird storeroom bits. I can imagine that some people probably felt cheated by the lack of answers we got here - and Eiffel's own anger and frustration as the episode ends maybe feels like a concession to those people. But personally, I'm more than willing to leave it as a riddle for the ages. If this had developed into something more later on, that would have been fun. As it is, I didn't mind it one bit, though. As long as you don't overdo it, weirdness for weirdness' sake can be plenty entertaining. 

Plus, drunk Minkowski is a gift to us all :)

Miscellaneous thoughts:

So I checked out the poem that got name-dropped in this episode, Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus, and holy smokes, disturbing much? In an interesting kind of way, sure, but still disturbing...

"You can't solve all your problems by knocking them out." "You know, people keep saying that, and yet my problems keep going away."  

D'awww Hilbert is enjoying this, isn't he?

I bet your alcohol tolerance goes way down in space. Hmm...

"Eiffel, you do not understand, there is singing."

"Swashes and buckles, Hilbert, swashes and buckles."

Also, it sounds like Hera has absolutely no objections to the talent show, and is just busy practicing her lines? What a cutie ^-^

"I don't know if it was a warning shot or if she just missed." Scared Hilbert is 100% not what I'm used to.. Is this the most frightened we ever hear him?

Don't think I missed Eiffel finding Dr. Fourier's diary :'( (another thing linking this episode to Change of Mind?)

[tumblingdoe]

January 11-15 on the Sexplanations Road Tour

Friday January 11, 2019

Nels repaired the roof vent that was worn out and worked on the water system while I business-interneted. We drove out of town to an Indian restaurant, ate, and then unrelated to the food -- determined that Nels needed some medical care. Five’ish hours later at the hospital we were discharged without any good answers but he seems to be on the mend. We drove south where I satiated a guilty pleasure (Chick-fil-a) and grocery shopped for some healthier eats. I bought a basil plant that we call Marvelous Mrs. Basil. We finished watching The Wiz and then winded down to the somewhat terrifying sounds of a car repossession followed later by car drifting and police intervention.

Saturday January 12, 2019

Happy that we survived the night in a parking lot, Nels and I drove to a nearby RV village where we were able to empty our gray and black water tanks for only $10. We also cleaned out our fresh water tanks and did dishes in house for the first time! An hour later we were San Francisco at Aunt Linda’s. She made us brunch and talked to us about sex and aging, hormones, incontinence, impotence, and dating. I’m excited to turn the conversation into an episode of Sexplanations.

Aunt Linda then drove us to our next engagement -- recording videos and a podcast at Mr. S Leather with Amp from Watts the Safeword. Amp had reached out on Twitter and I was so relieved. I wanted to keep going with the Sexplanations podcast and recording video episodes while on tour but we haven’t had time to sort out equipment or set it up. Amp had a studio in San Francisco with lights and microphones and cameras. He invited me in, made me tea, gave me all the time I needed to switch gears in to pro-mode, and then recorded everything for me to share with you. We did a podcast on sexhacks, an episode of Watts the Safeword on sex education, and an episode of Sexplanations YouTube channel about daddies. We just put my memory cards in his gear and voila, production! It was such a huge moment of feeling wrapped up by a safe person and validated as a creator. Amp didn’t judge me for needing his help. He just loved on me and needed that.

While we were there I also got a thorough tour of Mr. S Leather. I’d been 12ish years ago when I was in San Francisco for my doctorate but a lot had changed. Amp walked us through the showroom -- gear for every fetish and kink you can imagine. Then as a super treat he took us behind the scenes where most of their products were manufactured, right there in the building! We saw the old latex room with patterns for full suits, the remains of a really comprehensive dungeon, and the shipping warehouse. I was astounded by the passion everywhere. There was so much attention to detail and care for the products! The  foot and half long dragon cock dildo was made by someone who wants that experience to be perfect.

I left feeling all warm and gooey. Nels left with ideas for rafting wetsuits and a new sex education. We wandered down the street to a coffee shop we learned about at PatreCon called Wicked Grounds. They had offered to host a event but I hadn’t been able to follow-though. So I asked a table of friendly faces if they had any sexuality questions for the sexologist on tour. “Nope.” One of them actually had their own sex education channel and was very situated in their knowledge of the subject.

I walked away from the cafe feeling very comfortable that we hadn’t planned more in California. Cali has so many sex ed resources. So does Oregon. These places aren’t my classroom per se, they are my launchpad. Between Nels’ friends in Oregon wrapping us up emotionally and Cali grounding me professionally -- it was like we were being nurtured for the experiences to come.

Nels gave me a burrito that he’d gotten for me while I was shooting with Amp and we walked to The Chapel twenty or so minutes away for a show. He treated us to the Red Room Orchestra performing the Big Lebowski. Margaret Cho was Walter, Kevin McDonald was the Dude, and James Adomian played the stranger. It was outstanding! Just incredible!

After the show we found late night Indian then took a Lyft back to the RV. The fridge wasn’t working because things weren’t so level on the San Francisco hills so Nels and I capped off the night stacking these really nice blocks someone got us on our Amazon Wishlist.

Sunday January 13, 2019

We went back to Aunt Linda’s, this time for showers. Then she took us out for lunch at a super cool restaurant called the Pork Store. After food we rushed back to the RV to get across town to a landscaping center to meet Dixie de la Tour for a podcast recording in. the. RV! Dixie showed up with her St. Bernard and we all climbed aboard to talk about her work running and mothering Bawdy Storytelling. She also has a podcast. 10/10 would recommend! We wrapped up our conversation 10 minutes before the landscaping center closed so I ran in with Marvelous Mrs. Basil in her inadequate two inch pot and paid a $2.00 re-potting fee to get her a new container and more soil.

It was a rush-rush day. Next on the list was dinner with three of my classmates from the institute where I did my doctorate. Jack drove an hour and half south, Danielle drove an hour north, and Nels and I drove the RV to pick up Ivy for us all to meet at Basil Canteen for Thai. The whole meal was perfect. I hadn’t seen these friends in more than a decade but there we were deep in conversation about sex of course, and buying a school to teach sexology! I think everyone left having to wake up in a few hours for work but grateful for the night.

Jack drove Ivy home (which I hoped would reignite a romance) and Danielle invited us to stop at her place the following day. We all said good-bye and then Nels and I strolled home happy. On our way around the block --because the RV was parked just down the street--we said hello to some gorgeous queens from the Imperial Sovereign Court and stopped at a gaming cafe for virtual reality. I love it. Nels was indifferent. And then he was awesome at it and we hung out for an hour getting some physical activity in by thrashing our arms around.

To conclude the day, we drove all the way the beach so we could listen to the waves from bed. It’s still really hard to push myself with work and travel but gifts like that are a reminder that were are right where we need to be and doing the best we can.

Monday January 14, 2019

I woke up wanting nothing more than WiFi so we set up our laptops in a cafe on the oceans and worked for hours. I was actually still on the phone planning stops when Nels courted me out to get to Sunnyvale by 3:00 to meet Danielle, my classmate from the night before. I kept working in the RV while he drove and we got there right on time.

Danielle situated us with rain showers, chicken soup, and tourist suggestions for the rest of our California route. That is until we learned that the coastal highway would be shut down for the week due to landslides. I was disappointed but only mildly. Being in Danielle’s care was delightful. She kept it simple and cozy, no pressure, no hassle. We got to explore her Somatica space -- a revolutionary way to improve relationships and sexuality and Danielle gave us two of her books! And a bag of oranges from her yard!

To finish the day Nels and I drove past the Apple complex, which is enormous, and we dined all fancy-like at Oren’s Hummus.

Tuesday January 15, 2019

Sadists are people who experience pleasure from inflicting pain. Nels is not this. I think he experiences pleasure from pleasing others. While I slept he drove us to Lover’s point so the RV windows would be looking out over a quintessential ocean view. Then he proceeded to cook onions, kale, broccoli, rainbow carrots, sausage, garlic, and eggs in a cast-iron pan for breakfast on the coast. Who is this person!?!?!

Before getting back on the road we climbed along the rocks watching the cormorants dive. I tried to swim but the tide came too quickly for it to be safe. We returned to the RV to acquire more miles. I responded to over 100 emails then requested we take a break from the washing machine existence of riding in an RV and nap. Post nap, Nels was at it again making colorful amazing food. He set up Moon --the 2009 film-- and we had our version of a drive-in dine-in movie.

This is in San Luis Obisbo. Now we’ve driven longer past huge agriculture land to Solvang and it is time again for cuddles and bed.

[newstfionline]

‘We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things’

By Alana Semuels, The Atlantic, Aug. 21, 2018

It’s easier than ever to buy things online. It’s so easy that Ryan Cassata sometimes does it in his sleep. Cassata, a 24-year-old singer/songwriter and actor from Los Angeles, recently got a notification from Amazon that a package had been shipped to his apartment, but he didn’t remember buying anything. When he logged onto his account and saw that a fanny pack and some socks were on the way, he remembered: A few nights back, he had woken up in the middle of the night to browse--and apparently shop on--Amazon.

He shops when he’s awake, too, buying little gadgets like an onion chopper, discounted staples like a 240-pack of gum, and decorations like a Himalayan salt lamp. The other day, he almost bought a pizza pool float, until he remembered that he doesn’t have a pool. “I don’t really need most of the stuff,” he tells me.

Thanks to a perfect storm of factors, Americans are amassing a lot of stuff. Before the advent of the internet, we had to set aside time to go browse the aisles of a physical store, which was only open a certain number of hours a day. Now, we can shop from anywhere, anytime--while we’re at work, or exercising, or even sleeping. We can tell Alexa we need new underwear, and in a few days, it will arrive on our doorstep. And because of the globalization of manufacturing, that underwear is cheaper than ever before--so cheap that we add it to our online shopping carts without a second thought. “There’s no reason not to shop--because clothing is so cheap, you feel like, ‘why not?’ There’s nothing lost in terms of the hit on your bank account,” Elizabeth Cline, the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, told me.

Shopping online also feels good. Humans get a dopamine hit from buying stuff, according to research by Ann-Christine Duhaime, a professor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. “As a general rule, your brain tweaks you to want more, more, more--indeed, more than those around you--both of ‘stuff’ and of stimulation and novelty,” Duhaime wrote in a Harvard Business Review essay last year. Online shopping allows us to get that dopamine hit, and then also experience delayed gratification when the order arrives a few days later, which may make it more physiologically rewarding than shopping in stores.

Sites like Amazon have made it especially easy to shop. In 1999, the Seattle retailer patented a one-click buying process, which allows customers to purchase something without entering their shipping address or credit card info. It launched its Prime program in 2005, and now more than 100 million people have signed on to pay $119 a year for “free” two-day shipping. As a result, most other major retailers offer free shipping too. Returning stuff is a little more difficult--shoppers usually have to print a label and then go to the post office or a UPS or FedEx site to return packages. Many wait too long, or decide the hassle isn’t worth it because the stuff was cheap anyway. A recent NPR/Marist poll found that nine in 10 consumers rarely or never return stuff they’ve bought online.

Justine Montoya, a caregiver in Los Angeles, buys all sorts of stuff online--baby formula, clothes, household goods. She estimates that she shops online twice a week. “It’s just so easy--you click a button, and it’s on its way,” she told me.

In the last few months alone, I bought an $18 smart watch from Wish.com that I will probably never use, a second Kindle because it was on sale and I am worried my first Kindle is going to die soon, an electric space heater I no longer need, and a pair of wireless earbuds that I had hoped would allow me to charge my iPhone and listen to music at the same time, but that instead just fall out of my ears whenever I put them on. I also bought, on Amazon, a (used) book about hiking in the Sierras for $1.99, only to find the exact same book in a box of my stuff in my parents’ basement. I didn’t return any of it.

In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion--twice as much as they’d spent in 2002--on goods like jewelry, watches, books, luggage, and telephones and related communication equipment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which adjusted those numbers for inflation. Over that time, the population grew just 13 percent. Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000.

All told, “we are all accumulating mountains of things,” said Mark A. Cohen, the director of retail studies at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He sometimes asks his students to count the number of things they have on them in class, and once they start counting up gadgets and cords and accessories, they end up near 50. “Americans have become a society of hoarders,” Cohen said. Montoya said she has more stuff now that she has started shopping online: “It’s easier to accumulate more, and it’s easier to spend more.”

At the same time we are amassing all this stuff, Americans are taking up more space. Last year, the average size of a single-family house in America was 2,426 square feet, a 23 percent increase in size from two decades ago, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The number of self-storage units is rapidly increasing too: There are around 52,000 such facilities nationally; two decades ago, there were half that number.

Of course, not everyone is a part of this hoarding revolution. There are people who can’t or don’t shop online, because they don’t have credit cards or because they are barely making ends meet. Only about 29 percent of households with incomes under $25,000 are members of Amazon Prime, according to Kantar Consulting. Some people are embracing the zero waste movement, or have followed the example of the author Ann Patchett, who published a widely-circulated op-ed in The New York Times about how she resolved to stop shopping for a year. When she ceased buying things like lip gloss and lotion and hair products, she started finding half-used versions of them under the sink, and realized she hadn’t needed new things after all. “The things we buy and buy and buy are like a thick coat of Vaseline smeared on glass,” she wrote. “We can see some shapes out there, light and dark, but in our constant craving for what we may still want, we miss life’s details.”

But most Americans are not curtailing their shopping habits. And as consumers demand cheaper clothing, electronics, and other goods, manufacturers are spending less to make them, which sometimes means they fall apart more quickly. The share of large household appliances that had to be replaced within five years grew to 13 percent in 2013, up from seven percent in 2004. Cheap clothes might lose their shape after a wash or two, or get holes after a few tumbles in the dryer; electronics become obsolete quickly and need to be replaced. While some of this stuff can be recycled or resold, often, it ends up in landfills. In 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, Americans put 16 million tons of textiles in the municipal waste stream, a 68 percent increased from 2000. We tossed 34.5 million tons of plastics, a 35 percent increase from 2000, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency. Over that same time period, the population grew just 14 percent.

“Sometimes, people sit down and cry when they see the amount of garbage we produce in a day,” said Robert Reed, a spokesman for Recology, which handles recycling for West Coast cities like San Francisco. Centered in America’s tech capital, Recology has seen an increase in discarded electronics, including products with lithium batteries, Reed told me. In 2016, a lithium battery fire burnt down a waste management facility in San Mateo.

The 16,000 students who live in dorms at Michigan State University left behind 147,946 pounds of goods like clothing, towels, and appliances when they moved out this year, a 40 percent increase from 2016, according to Kat Cooper, a spokeswoman. The university packs up these goods and donates to them to its surplus store, so that incoming students can buy used, rather than new, stuff. In recent years, dorm cleaners have been finding so many packages of unopened food and toiletries that the university started a program to get students to donate leftover food and toiletries to local organizations like food banks when they move out. This year, it collected 900 pounds of personal care items and 4,000 pounds of nonperishable food items to donate. Pomona College has seen the volume of packages delivered grow by 325 percent in the last 12 years, according to Patricia Vest, a spokeswoman; it, too, asks students to donate unused goods to a resale program. This year, it diverted 42 tons of clothes, furniture, and office supplies.

The Internet has also made it easier to recycle some of the stuff Americans buy and no longer want. Online consignment shops like thredUP and Poshmark help people buy and sell clothes from their closets. Secondhand stores like Goodwill have moved online, too, selling the growing pile of goods they get on the Internet.

But the ability to easily get rid of stuff may be making people feel a little better about buying things they don’t need, and motivating them to buy even more. On a recent weekday, I stopped by the massive warehouse where workers from Goodwill of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin sort donations to Bay Area stores. Some of the stuff that’s been donated has never been used. Near the front of the warehouse stands a rack of clothes with their original tags on--a $245 blue Nicole Miller cocktail dress, $88 Kit and Ace pants, a pale green J. Jill blouse. “We are seeing items that have been barely used or not used, because when people shop online, it’s a lot of work to return it,” William Rogers, the president of the Goodwill, told me. Rogers himself is guilty--when we met at the warehouse, he dropped off four wall sconces he’d bought a year ago on Amazon. He had tried to put them up, decided they didn’t look good, and brought them to donate.

Secondhand shops can’t resell all of the donations they get. Cline estimates that 85 percent of the clothing that is donated to secondhand stores ends up in landfills every year. Just nine percent of plastic that ends up in the municipal waste stream gets recycled, according to the EPA, and only 15 percent of textiles get recycled. It can be difficult to take apart clothes and re-use the fabrics, Cline said, so lots of clothing in the waste stream gets sent to the developing world, used for rags, or sent to a landfill.

Fifty years ago, the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick coined a phrase for these “useless objects” that accumulate in a house: “kipple.” In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which served as the basis for the movie Blade Runner, he theorized that “the entire universe is moving toward a state of total, absolute kippleization.” Kipple reproduced, Dick wrote, when nobody was around. The ubiquity of mobile devices and the ease of online shopping have made Dick’s prediction come true, with one small tweak: Our kipple does not just multiply on its own, every time we turn away. We grow it ourselves, buying more and more of it, because we can.

[blkwidowsweb]

Chosen Few Spotlight: Ralphi Rosario

Ralphi Rosario is a Grammy Nominated remixer; producer and founding member of the influential Chicago DJ group Hot Mix 5.  Because of his love for music and his desire to share it with others, Ralphi Rosario began spinning records for friends in the late 1970’s.  Almost a quarter century later, he still spins for larger crowds at massive parties all around the world.  As a member of the legendary group, The Hot Mix 5, he was a part of the #1 Radio show in Chicago on WBMX. The Hot Mix 5 were known all over the world for their turntable skills and unique style.    Ralphi’s crossover hit, “You Use to Hold Me” became an overnight classic that is still played today and is considered one of house music’s anthems.  Rosario continues to work as a DJ and remixer and has released several full-length albums. He has remixed tracks with some of the hottest names in music from Beyoncé, Katy Perry, Stevie Nicks, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, Madonna, and so many more.  This year he joins the Chosen Few DJs as one of the guests at this year’s Chosen Few Picnic & Festival. I recently had a chance to chat with him about his legendary career and his thoughts on playing this year’s festival.

Black Widow:  You started DJing in your teenage years.  When were you first introduced to the art form of DJing?

Ralphi Rosario:  I started when I was about 12/13 years old.  It was disco predominately and R&B that was played in the house.  My brothers and sisters loved Phyllis Hyman and the O ‘Jays. I was learning how to play records at home when disco was coming out. I started to master what is what like to play two records together. I was intrigued by it all.  When Disco DAI was introducing their version of the hot mix,  which was the only thing out at the time, I remember loving it.   It was such a mystery to me but I started looking into it. At the time it was just a hobby for me.

Black Widow:  What made you want to learn how to DJ? Were you self-taught or did someone teach you?

Ralphi Rosario:  I was listening a lot to mixes on Disco DAI and I was trying to figure out how they did this.  I would hear each song on a normal rotation but when these guys were doing it, the music sounded so different. I snuck into a couple of parties at 13/14 when my brothers were playing. They were in a salsa band but they would have DJs play in between their sets.  Some of the parties were at The Golden Tierra on Cicero and Belmont and another spot called Givenchy Manor on North Avenue and Central.  Those were some serious disco parties. The first time I was really exposed to it all was at the Aragon ballroom. It was a battle of the DJs. Can you imagine hearing  The Machine’s “There But For The Grace of God ” in a room that size? I was in the middle of the dancefloor dancing and the bass line dropped to “FunkyTown” and the entire place went crazy! I knew then that was something I wanted to do.

Black Widow:  What did your first DJ Setup look like?

Ralphi Rosario:   My 1st setup was a pair of Technics SL 1800s. They were just belt driven turntables that had these pitch knobs.  I was running home after school practicing every single day. I would get two of the same records and mix them back and forth. I was doing it all just for fun.  I never thought about doing it professionally. That’s not why I got into it. I just loved the music so much. It was the 70s you know? It was such a vast amount of good music!

Black Widow:  How did you get involved with the Hot Mix Five?  You were the youngest member correct?

Ralphi Rosario:  Yes I was a freshman in high school. I belonged to a record pool called “Nbja” and a guy named Don St. James ran the record pool.  A lot of DJs I knew collected records from this pool. I joined the pool and started to collect records and such. One day he told me a radio station, WBMX, was looking for mix reels.  He said if you want to put together an hour show, I’ll submit it and get it to the radio station and we’ll see what happens. It was 10 or so members who submitted tapes to the radio station. I submitted tapes every week...and nothing!  Then one day it was 10’o clock at night and I’m listening to the radio and they played my mix!

Black Widow: What was that like? What did that feel like especially as a teenager to hear your mix on the radio?

Ralphi Rosario:  They didn’t know I was a kid! LOL!  I wasn’t shocked, but I was overwhelmed! LOL! People didn’t believe me when I told them but at the end of the program they announced my name and my mom’s jaw just dropped! My brothers were looking at me like, “how the hell did you do that”?  It was fun. I kept being consistent with it. I had a friend named Julio who was helping me and mentoring me. We would go the record stores together and the record pool together. He was instrumental in bringing those reels to reels to the record pool. He made sure I was doing one every week.  He figured if I was on the radio station it would help with what we were doing with the Mobile DJ business. We did weddings, cotillions and such. I was a mobile DJ but I was doing stuff for the radio station as well.

Black Widow: What was it like being a member of the Hot Mix 5, especially at such a young age.  How did you guys balance the different musical styles and ideas?

Ralphi Rosario:  It was really cool. We all had great taste in music. We were just doing what we knew how to do to the best of our ability. We never worried about what each other was going to play.  It was a great marriage of five different styles of music and we just did our thing. It just kept going and going and we got more popular. I was not expecting it. It was just a joy to play music.

Black Widow:  When did you realize you could do this for a living and not just as a hobby?

Ralphi Rosario:  I don’t think I had a moment persay.  I do remember knowing I had something special when we did a few of our first Hot Mix 5 parties.  We did one at Mendel that was really cool and one at UIC Pavilion. It was massive! We had 22,000 people in there!    I was still not serious about it; just playing for fun.   I was just going with it and enjoying the ride.

The inspiration came from so much music at the time.  It was a lot of underground and disco. I was still young and didn’t go to clubs and such but when I was exposed to the underground music scene, things changed it for me.  Benji Espinoza worked at a record pool I used to help run and he took me to the PowerPlant. He said Frankie (Knuckles) would like to meet you but we aren’t going until 5am! I was like are you crazy! LOL! We walked in and you have to remember, I ‘ve never seen this side of the city, I had no idea what was going on and I’m young!  I remember walking into this really dark space with just a strobe light blinking, a big black box and a bunch of heads moving all over the place.   The sound system was amazing! I was floored. I remember going to the DJ booth and Frankie was playing Jamie Principle’s “Waiting On My Angel” and all of the sudden he brings in the low end and the crossover and the entire room just lost their minds!

Black Widow:  They always mention how dope the sound was!

Ralphi Rosario:  It was! When you were inside The PowerPlant or The Warehouse,  where the sound was so important, you heard the music the way it was meant to be heard.  It was a huge thing for me. That’s when I got into the whole technical issue of it all.

Black Widow:   When did music production and remixing come into play in your career?

Ralphi Rosario:   I was inspired by guys like Jesse Saunders and Farley who were starting to produce and make records. I was really into the engineering side. The method of recording, and the technicalities of it all.  I’ve always wanted to learn how to make records. Walking into a studio and watching how records were made was very captivating for me at a very young age. I stood in Chicago Trax Recording Studio just watching them do their thing. I’d assist and help them and asked lots of questions. They always answered my questions.   I started getting into it and learning drum machines, how they operated and all that stuff. There were people along the way who helped me and assisted me and taught me. We were all in it together. We were learning from each other. It was great thing for me growing up.

Black Widow:  You got to be a sponge, just soaking it all up?

Ralphi Rosario: Yeah absolutely!!! I was definitely a sponge when it came to making and playing records. They went hand in hand for me. I tried to investigate and learn as much as I could.

Black Widow:  What inspires you to create music?

Ralphi Rosario: I am inspired by so many things.  I can sit in a car and hear an old song and love the cord progression, or the lyrics to something or even something that someone says to me. My mind is constantly moving. I pick it up from everywhere.  Especially now, with the ability to make music from home and such, I’m always inspired by stuff and I’ll start putting ideas down. Once it’s in my head, sometimes I can’t put it down and I’ll create something right away. I can’t stop.

Black Widow: LOL...I totally understand. I’ve had those moments with writing. Sometimes I have something in my head that I have to put on paper and I cannot stop writing until it’s completed.  Sometimes I’ll even exhale really hard after it’s done as if I was holding my breath until I write the last word.  Honestly, sometimes that is when you create something that’s 100% authentic.

Ralphi Rosario: Yes it’s very true!  I’ve been so inspired by people along the way as well.   During the time when New York had Def Mix, Kenny Gonzales, Louie Vega, and David Morales coming out, they were all so creative and I loved what they were doing. I’d go to New York and spend time just listening and observing and analyzing and I’d bring that energy back with me when I played in Chicago.  Then I’d sit in the studio and create my own interpretation of what I heard.

Black Widow:  As a DJ, what is the key to breaking new music to an audience that may want to hear one genre of house music?

Ralphi Rosario: It really depends on how you program it. You can’t just toss it anywhere. You have to make it fit somehow. If I have something new I want to introduce, its how you drop it in. It’s always been that way for me.

Black Widow: Does that change as you play?

Ralphi Rosario:   Oh yeah! If you are playing a party with 1500 people, you have 1500 different tastes and not everyone is going to like the same thing. Not to mention, if I stick around too long in one type of genre, I’d get bored myself so it keeps you on your toes to know when to switch it up.

Black Widow:    I’ve always said there is an invisible exchange of energy between dancers and DJs, what does that connection feel like to you?

Ralphi Rosario:  I feel that. It’s always there.  I never have a set program, you know? I go by ear and by what I feel at the time but I also go with what the crowd is feeding me and vice versa. You are right, it’s an invisible connection and it’s strong.    I can look around, see and feel it.

“I don’t want to look at a laptop, I don’t want to scroll too much in front of a CDJ, I want to see people’s faces”

Black Widow: When I interview DJs who have been in this business for a long time,  that’s the number one thing they say! They want to see the crowd and feel that energy.

Ralphi Rosario:   Yes, because that inspires you to see what else you can come up with especially when you are doing it on the fly, it’s the best thing.

Black Widow:  It’s very organic.

Ralphi Rosario:  Yes that’s the word! THANK YOU! LOL…I have to remember you are a writer! LOL…

Black Widow:  LOL…yes I love words!

Ralphi Rosario: I’m using that from now on!

Black Widow:  How does being from Chicago influence you as an artist?

Ralphi Rosario:   I make sure I can still get that education.    You have to know where it came from; the roots.  That’s right here in my backyard.

Black Widow:   Yes the education and history.  It’s a huge reason why I created this site. It’s so important to me to document our history especially now because this music and scene are evolving so quickly.  We have information on the beginnings of the genre but I wanted to document what’s happening now as well.

Ralphi Rosario:  I couldn’t agree with you more. What you are doing is awesome!

Black Widow:  Thank you!  You have enjoyed such a long and successful career, what are the keys to longevity in this scene?

Ralphi Rosario:  You have to be open to understand the different genres, the different sounds in terms of styles of house, dance and clubbing. You have to be open to what’s going on. In most cases, there may be genres I may not be crazy about but I try to understand it and make it my own. When you are in the entertainment business there's always change and you have to accept what’s going on around you and make it your own. You don’t have to do it but you do have to understand it.

Black Widow:   What does it mean to you to play at the Chosen Few Picnic and Festival this year? What are you most looking forward to?

Ralphi Rosario:  I am floored and honored to playing this year! These guys have worked so hard to make this happen. They have made this into an institution now and I’m so proud of what they’ve done.  There is no one in Chicago who was doing this! You see how far it’s come. Terry and Alan told me it started off as a small picnic with a few people and now it’s tens of thousands of people! They stuck with it; they believed in it and have created something special. I’m so honored to be a part of this!  I was floored that they asked me to play!

Black Widow: Really?

Ralphi Rosario: OMG! Yes, they are doing an amazing job on their own; they don’t need me to play! LOL!    I’m just very humbled and grateful.  It’s really cool to be acknowledged and appreciated!

Black Widow: What can we look forward to from Ralphi Rosario this year?

Ralphi Rosario: There are bunch of things I’m working on. I’m working on remixing some classics that we have loved for so long. We can make people re-remember them and re-introduce them to the general public.  I have another album coming out in June as well!  It’s been 20 years since I’ve done an album. It’s a compilation called, "The B-Sides" and its tracks with Terry Hunter, David Morales, new material and a few remixes!

Black Widow:  Thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate you talking the time to chat with me!  This was great!

Ralphi Rosario: It was my pleasure!

Black Widow:  Thank you so much!

I hope you enjoyed the first installment of the Chicago Spotlight "Chosen Few Edition"! Click here to take a listen to some of Ralphi's latest tracks!   Look forward to interviews with Chosen Few guest Performers all month long!

Until next time,

See you on a dance floor!

Black Widow