Watch Ashton explain Twitter to Larry King! Their conversation is actually REALLY interesting.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1398558

And here’s Oprah with Evan Williams, the co-founder of Twitter:

From the New York Times:

With Oprah Onboard, Twitter Grows

By JENNA WORTHAM  Published: April 17, 2009

One small message from Oprah, one giant leap for Twitter.

On Friday morning, Twitter received the blessing of Oprah Winfrey, one of Middle America’s most influential tastemakers, when Ms. Winfrey tapped out her inaugural messageusing the microblogging service as the cameras of her talk show cameras rolled.

“HI TWITTERS,” Ms. Winfrey wrote, using all capital letters in the Internet equivalent of shouting. “THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY.”

The popularity of Twitter, which allows users to broadcast messages of 140 characters or less, has been soaring in recent months. In March, the service had more than 14 million unique visitors, compared to eight million visitors in February. Ms. Winfrey’s endorsement is only likely to draw more attention to the San Francisco start-up and propel it beyond its niche audience.

“Twitter has officially hit the mainstream,” said Megan Calhoun, founder of TwitterMoms, a social networking community for Web-savvy mothers. “People who have never even heard of it will be really intrigued and join. A whole new demographic will be introduced to Twitter.”

Friday’s show also featured Evan Williams, the chief executive of Twitter, and the actor Ashton Kutcher, one of the site’s most active celebrity members. In addition to Mr. Kutcher, the basketball player Shaquille O’Neal and the pop starlet Britney Spears are currently among the most popular contributors on the platform.

Read the rest of the article here.

Follow Oprah on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Oprah

Created by Andrew B.

My favorite week of the season is almost here! Don’t miss STL Fashion Week is March 23-29, 2009.

For the full schedule & all the hype, visit  http://www.stlfashionweek.com/

My friend E and I are starting a hip hop blog called “mic hype.” Read my first post on new artist, Drake, here!

And DEFINITELY, listen to the mixtape: “So Far Gone.” Warning: Once you push “Play,” you may not be able to stop listening!

Listen Here.

“Remade in America.”

I’m gonna be following this discussion closely!

Listen to her songs on myspace.

Bio info off her myspace page: 

“Santigold is a survivor of a half century worth of living along musical evolution’s most cutting edges. The only live act that can boast of having out-aged Barbara Bush, having outlived Mr. Miyagi and out styled Liberace, Santigold is here with future flavor. 

“Already receiving weighty club rotation and airplay in urban Afghanistan and downtown Beirut, Santigold is the first act of the century to boast a post-war following on the International Space Station Mir. Following a live performance broadcast from three thousand miles off the Cape of Good Hope last June, inmates at Leavenworth Penitentiary received Santigold with a celebratory confetti parade. Just another first for the modern super group that knows no bound. 

“Composed of absolutely no members, Santigold is also the first musical outfit capable of claiming the planet’s broiling collective consciousness as their front woman. Longtime collaborator, singer and songwriter Santi White says of her work with Santigold, “We began trying to write pop songs to sell, which made us depressed, so we started writing songs for ourselves instead.” The results of that self centered conceit is the songwriting work heard for the first time on the full length self-titled Santigold album, released in 2008 on Downtown/Lizard King (US) and Atlantic (UK). 

“As unmastered tracks leaked over the internet this past November, the request lines of radio stations from Miami to Hanoi began freezing with a flood of calls from listeners eager to hear the new Santigold sound over their frequencies. From his radio show in the United Arab Emirates capital city of Abu Dhabi, Michael Jackson (the King of Pop) played what Santigold snippets he had been able to pirate from a bootleg MySpace page dedicated to the group. Days later, BBC Radio One reported that the unreleased Santigold debut was heard blasting from the iPod shuffle of Libyan ruler Moammar Qaddafi as he entered an international summit in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Recognizing the urgent need to address the uproarious buzz, Santigold released the following statement through their label reps : “The response to our unmastered songs has been both premature and phenomenal! We were happy to hear that the children of Darfur have found hope in our melodic interpretation of life on the battlefield of love! We’re hoping that each and every 20-something from downtown San Francisco to central Mumbai will also learn something from our work! And to the people dropping no-knock fire on old ladies in Atlanta: shame on you! Santigold ain’t with that shit!” 

“The trajectory of such early successes leading to newfound political clout is nothing new for Santigold, whose debut album, though half a century in the making, is sure to rock glass pipes from the Lincoln Memorial to Buckingham palace. The flavor of the gold is guaranteed: Santigold!”

I’ve been wanting to write about coming home to the Lou for several days now, but the truth is I cannot seem to put it into words. How can I possibly describe what my heart felt when I first glimpsed the arch still miles away?  I drank in the lights of the skyline like I’d been in a desert with no water. Driving across the Mississippi on I-64, I laughed, and shouted, and danced, blaring 100.3 “The Beat” out the open windows, smelling the cool night air. (You never think about how much you will miss something so simple as radio stations!) I saw the bright lights of Lumiere Place in the distance, the old courthouse, the stadium, the  lit-up A-B eagle billboard (I’m pretty sure that’s been there all my life!); I saw the SLU towers, and all the familiar street signs for Forest Park Parkway, Boyle, Kingshighway. I was so excited I went on auto-pilot and almost drove “home,” to my old apartment in the CWE, until the construction on 40 halted my progress, reminding me that I’ve been gone and things have changed. That was the bitter-sweet moment when I realized what I already knew was true: that in some ways you can always go back home, and in other ways, you never can.

Driving back into the city reminded me of returning home from family roadtrips as a little kid–that excitement of seeing who could spot the arch first! I realized that that monument has always signaled to me that I am home.

Reflecting tonight I thought, how interesting that the arch was designed to represent a gateway. For explorers and travelers, St. Louis was the “gateway to the West,” the last outpost on the journey into the unknown. It seems so appropriate that the place I call home is itself a passageway. How interesting that I just happen to live in a city that has commemorated this idea of journey, of location and transition. It’s like coming home and realizing that you’re in the doorway!

This is just what I’ve been trying to learn. I want it to be true that wherever I go, I carry this “doorway” inside my heart. I am at “home” in this opening–this promising, transitional space. I am home in just that moment where one goes from-to. Right where you change and are not who you once where, but not yet who you will be. I’m embracing the idea of making my home in just this space. Contemplating stepping through this arching portal over and over and over again, until what is most familiar to me is just this movement and transition. 

* * * *

All deep thoughts aside, however, I am so overwhelmed and grateful to have a place that I love so well as here. Somewhere to return to with delight over many years. A place that I measure my experiences, my own growth, against. A place where I belong, where I need no introduction or explanation. When I think about what things are truly worth, to me, this is one of my greatest treasures–this place. It’s something I could never quantify with words or images or numbers. It’s a city, my city–with all it’s energy and buildings, and cars, and lights, jobs, streets, beer, hopes, dreams and people. It’s in me, and through me, and defines me and frees me, and I am it, and it’s me. We belong to one another, we correspond. And what Maya Angelou says is certainly true: “You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.” 

I don’t know how long I’ll get to stay this time, but God! It’s good to be home.

Read up on my new lover here.

Oooh yeah, let’s watch him work out a little bit!

I’ve never had a problem thinking globally; I am much more prone to have my mind in the sky, cry over world peace, and seek solutions to end crises on a international scale, than to actually walk out my door and look at what’s going on on my street. So my process over the years has been one of progressively drawing my mind out of the clouds of global musing, and finding ways to engage all my ideas in a local context. My recent move to Chattanooga to help a friend with his campaign for city council was the latest in a series of events which have been drawing me deeper into day-in day-out community engagement.

Well. After a mere 4 days on the campaign trail, I suddenly realized today that I have the distinct beginnings of the opposite issue! I have NO IDEA what has been happening in the world for the past week! No idea. All my usual bookmarks at the top of my browser (NYtimes, BBC, NPR, etc.) have been completely crowded out by sites like The Chattanoogan, The Pulse, The Times Free Press, and Southside Weekly News! The local has completely over-taken the global!

Maybe after the campaign I’ll get back to the “real world.” Hmmm…. or hopefully at least strike a nice balance!