Jam Master Jay, Run-DMC's turntable scratcher, was murdered in his home borough of Queens yesterday. News doesn't get much sicker than this. I, and everyone reading this, first heard a DJ scratch a record when Jam Master Jay did it. The fact that he was killed in Queens is all the sadder. It's a documented fact that Queens is the most culturally and ethnically diverse place on earth. If you walk down the street in Flushing, you see Afghans who fled the Taliban, Jewish retirees, and China's Christian refugees: the American dream squeezed into a single suburban block. Indians pump your gas at one station, and katty corner to that is a station run by Greeks. The diners in Queens are the greatest on earth, with 15-page menus packed dense with omelettes (peasent, western, mushroom, greek), pasta (Queens diner pasta is the only exception to the rule that you should never eat pasta at a restaraunt that leaves ketchup in the table), soups (leek, matzo, orzo), burgers (5 different meats, 6 choices of cheese, 10 garnishes, 20 combinations from pizza burgers to Texas burgers), salads (with whole egg, roasted chicken, or the best chopped ham anywhere on top), shakes (vanilla, egg cream, malt), and everything else. And my girlfriend is there.

Rappers introduce white kids to places they don't live, and Run-DMC introduced me to Queens. I gave a tape w/'Christmas in Hollis' to a girl my Junior year of college: such was the importance of that girl, such was the importance of that tape, that I would not have considered including any song that was less than sublime. Suffice to say DMC came through for me when I needed them. I'm far from their biggest fan in the world, but these guys' beats have a niche in my sentimental heart. Queens has another niche there, right next door.

Some come out of their hometown and they never get dough
But three teens from Queens take over the world and never let go
Just regular cats you know, that just happened to blow

-'Queens Day'