How ever far away!

Lamb or Wolfe?

I'm back from NYC where I had a marvelous time. Albin and I had more fun than any young men should be allowed. From $17 hamburgers to oysters on the half shell to Proseco and Red wine to wheat pasta with duck to dates wrapped in bacon to dancing and laughing at Beatrice into the wee-hours I experienced a rich, vibrant, friendly city that wrung me out and left me dripping, all the while leaving me wanting more. I was just as happy to depart Laguardia Airport as I was to arrive. Not because I didn't enjoy my time or the city--I loved both. I was happy to leave because I am exhausted and in need of the slow pace of my hometown to rejuvenate and get over the flu. I will return to the city that never sleeps. But, for now I will keep writing and thinking about one of my favorite cities.

BENNY LAVA

Moon Walkin' in Muncie

In the early eighties I was a breaker and a member of a group called the Clean Break Crew which eventually became known as CBC Fresh. The crew was made up of between two and four breakers, but me and David Bell were the original founding members. For the life of me I cannot remember David's breaker name, however, mine was Kid Cosmo, a name surely taken from a member of the rap group, Newcleus. The other two members rotated in and out for certain performances. Brian Thomas was with the group in our CBC Fresh days. In Clean Break's earlier days my little brother Jared was the third member of the crew. We called him Ten Speed (when Jared had his son he called him Three Speed) which was taken from a short lived 80's television series starring Jeff Goldbloom called "Ten Speed and Brown Shoes." The above photo is a photo of an original that ran in the Muncie Newspaper in around 1983. I have it in a frame in my living. The young deer-in-headlights is my brother moonwalking with his image super imposed over and over to appear as if he is gliding across the page. The photo had a caption that read Moon Walkin' in Muncie. The spread was great with lots of photos of the Clean Break Crew (me, David, and Jared) gettin' ill on cardboard. A great photo of David spinning on his head while Ten Speed and Kid Cosmo kept time on the periphery graced the pages. The spread was big and the shoot took place in an alley behind the newspaper building downtown. I'll have more photos from those days at a later date. We thought we were a pretty big deal back then. Aside from the myriad Breakin' contests that took place at local skating rinks we were paid performers with matching uniforms and a manager. David's mom Carol would sew sequins on our sweat suits and book all our gigs, mostly birthday parties for middle school girls and the occasional summer festival. In fact, during one festival, The Buck Creek Festival in Yorktown, IN., we won best float, a float consisting of us riding in the back of a pick up truck while poppin' and lockin'. They gave us a trophy. In another festival at Spring Water Park in Muncie we were given the option of either breakin' on cardboard, earlier than originally planned, on top of the basketball court, which would put us on the Channel 8 news, or, we could dance at the regularly scheduled time on a stage with a linoleum floor. Now, most would say that's a no-brainer and dancing on TV would be the choice. Not us, we were artists and wanted to be at our best for the fans. Mind you, we were only thirteen-years old. We told them we didn't care about TV we wanted the linoleum.

The young girls at those birthday parties would shriek when we danced. It's the closest I've ever been to experiencing celebrity. We were even asked for our autographs on more than one occasion.

R.I.P. BUBBY!

"Let the poppers pop/and the breakers break."
-Run DMC

-jason