Everybody loves the sunshine: an ode to sunsets and cruisin’

photo by Marcus Woollen

Growing up in New York city there a few things that you learn and accept about your environment. You don’t realize it, but New Yorkers see the sun less then folks in other places.  Why?  You see, in New York (especially in the city), there’s always something obstructing the horizon line; a building, a stadium, a statue; something!  Oddly enough, there’s one day a year when the sun perfectly aligns with 42nd street in Manhattan, this phenomenon is call the Manhattan Equinox.  Granted, many of these structures that obstruct the horizon line are beautiful in their own respect, but sometimes you just wanna see the sun crawl down the clouds and gingerly tuck itself under the horizon line; and sneak out of view.

While in college at SUNY Albany, I became a radio DJ at my school’s radio station WCDB 90.9fm.  Albany, is located in the Hudson Valley with the Hudson river low lands on one side and hills and mountains on the other.  In addition, the campus of SUNY Albany features tall very slender; sort of obelisk-looking buildings that stand higher above almost anything in at least a three or four mile radius, maybe more.  As a result, when you peer out of the bank of long, thin, rectangular, almost ceiling to floor, windows in radio station’s master control room; you were afforded a clear unobstructed view of the horizon.

My first radio show slot was 5pm to 8pm.  It was a Jazz slot, but I wavered from the format on occasion.  One of my favorite deviations was D’Angleo’s Cruisin’ (Wet Remix).  I’d put it on just as the sun was making its final appearance for that day.  Cruisin’s extended 6 minute plus extended mix was the perfect soundtrack for a city boy’s budding love affair with the setting sun.  The radio station broadcast booth would be all aglow as the orangey red-yellow sun would mix with the blue sky into a pink purpley melange of “relaxatory” goodness when coupled with D’Angelo’s Cruisin’.  The colors would come through the narrow windows and create weird long shadows on the control surfaces of the radio station equipment, and I would kick back and chill. I imagined it was perfect music to drive home to after a long day at the office, although I was only 19 and still wet behind the ears.

After undergrad, I came back to NYC and went to law school and lived in Brooklyn and forgot all about the sun. However, one of the first things I noticed when I moved to Washington DC, (with the height restrictions on buildings and such) were the sunsets.  It was like, everyday I wish I had my camera as I left work. Finally, I knew what it was like to leave the office; amid the sunset, cruisin’.  Finally, it all made sense. After many long days at the office, I can appreciate the song, and sunsets, all the more.

Alot of folks never heard this remix, so I figured I share it, along with a photo of a New York sunset.