Jive Turkeys

I’m used to seeing this type of Wild Turkey in my hood:

But I was in Ft. Dupont Park in Southeast DC this afternoon and I saw these actual wild turkeys. I was buggin’.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I mean granted, it is the Monday after Thanksgiving so maybe they thought it was safe to come out of hiding because the coast was clear, but what the hell are they doing in the city in the first place?!?!? Somebody needs to tell them Fort Dupont Park might not be the best place to hide out if they’re trying to avoid getting shot.

Better bammas than them have played and lost at that game.

One of my neighbors said that the the first time he saw them he thought he was tripping so hard he was scared to mention it to anyone. Hahaha. I didn’t know if they were dangerous or what, so I did a little research. Of course by “did a little research,” I mean “posted a Facebook status asking if they were dangerous.”

Let’s just say that based on the answers I got I decided to get back in the car and go home! But not before I had a little photo shoot…

Say cheese, jive turkeys!

Yeah, I really typed that.

New Years Eve Fun!!!

Hey you guuuuyyyyyssss!!!

If you’re gonna be in or around DC or are thinking about heading this way to celebrate New Years, might I suggest that you buy tickets to see me headline the DC Improv that weekend. We have shows Wed. thru Friday, and the NEW YEARS EVE dinner shows are gonna be SUPER fun! Great food, lots of drink. And you can watch me stay sober so I can work while you toast and get toasted. There is sure to be some bitterness on my part, but also a lot of hilarity. I’ve included the show information below:

SHOWTIMES:

12/29 & 12/30:
Showtimes: 8:00pm
Ticket Info: http://tinyurl.com/2et7aam

12/31 (NYE):
Friday: 8:00pm / 10:15 Countdown Show
Ticket Info: http://tinyurl.com/27x59at

DC IMPROV
1140 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 296-7008
http://www.dcimprov.com/

Blow me

OK, now that I’ve got your attention I just want to start by acknowledging that the overriding theme of this post is not funny — in fact its very, very sad. But I can’t deny I chuckled a bit when I first heard it.

Alright, leggggo. So my cousin who we will call “J” for the purpose of this blog has developed a really bad drinking problem over the past few years. It’s gotten so bad that his wife had one of those breathalyzer ignition locks installed in his car.

The first few times he went out after she put it on, he went out and got drunk but wasn’t able to start the car to drive home. A shame he does this regularly, but the device did what it was supposed to do, which made the roads safer for everyone. But he recently figured a way around it. He went to his favorite bar and left his car running in the parking lot while he went inside and got wasted. So he wouldn’t have to blow to start it. Yes, really.

Exhale.

I feel like most times when people are in a situation where they contemplate drinking and driving it’s unplanned. They go out, start having a good time and one or two drinks turns into three or four and before you know it, it’s last call and you realize you have no way to get home… But what J did was completely premeditated.

NOW, I AM NOT BY ANY MEANS TRYING TO EXCUSE THIS BEHAVIOR…

But you gotta admit it was a pretty well-thought out plan. Gas up the car, go to a bar where folks know you and the car will be safe… Who says alcohol ruins brain cells??!? Besides anyone with any medical training… The details on how he was found out are a little murky but someone saw it and tattled — he certainly didn’t tell on himself — so he didn’t end up getting behind the wheel. But the fact still remains that he could have.

Scary.

I did a little research on these devices because it seems like there are a ton of work-arounds where intoxicated folks could still drive. You could do what my cousin did and not shut your car off, you could have (a very unscrupulous) someone blow to start the car for you. All you can do is hope that most people wouldn’t think to plan ahead like that. And anyone who blew for a drunk person to start their would have to be sober — and therefore knowingly be sending someone off to drive drunk rather than take them to a safe place. At the very least that’s illegal, and in my opinion, anyone who’d do that should be required to ride along in the passenger’s seat.

But another thing I learned is that as you’re driving these ignition locks prompt drivers to blow at various random intervals during the trip. You have to pull over and then blow or the car will lock up — horns may beep, lights may flash, and the motor will shut off if the person is over the legal limit. So you could risk it if you’re going a short distance, but chances are you wouldn’t get far. Plus for those people where the ignition lock was mandated as a result of a DUI the failed breathalyzer information is recorded and downloaded.

I’ve said all this to say that upon first hearing the story, I’ll admit I was amused by my cousin’s craftiness — moreso by that fact that despite it he still got caught. But when I thought more about it I realized what a disaster it might have been. I guess these devices aren’t perfect and they can’t stop people from drinking altogether. But hey if they didn’t exist a lot more people would be driving drunk. So they’re doing some good. Do any of you know anyone with one of these devices? How’s it working for them. Inquiring mind wanna know.

I wanna know.

Ooops!

I seem to have published a blog a few hours ago that I was still just working on. I pulled it down. But the fact that no one notified me of this means that either anyone who read it thought it was complete and I’m just a terrible blogger OR that I have very few regular readers.

Neither option makes me feel good.

My plan was to work on it overnite and post it tomorrow. But now I doubt I will. That’s what I get for trying to blog more regularly and plan ahead. But the reality is, no one’s probably reading this either.

My emoticon has apparently committed murder.

Bad Movies and Bullsh*t Morality

This movie is so bad Vivica Fox decided to use an alias.

Which says a lot considering she was in Juwanna Man, Booty Call, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood — I could go on but do I really need to? I wish I had taken a photo of the first screen of the description of this movie. It said something to the effect of “Combining the best aspects of Beauty Shop and Barbershop, this film…” Exhale. Not only does it fall short of honoring these — what in comparison to this movie seem like — cinematic masterpieces, it tries way too hard to tackle way too many societal issues. I didn’t watch from the beginning, but in the time I was watching the characters addressed:

  • Corruption within the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  • Why it took being demeaned by Billy Bob Thornton for a Black woman to win an Oscar
  • The unfairness of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
  • Gay bashing
  • Domestic and emotional abuse
  • Women who “use their bodies as commodities” in order to get expensive gifts
  • A history lesson on the contributions of Black inventors to American society.

Oh, and there were pimps and ho’s too.

It was 10x preachier than any Tyler perry movie or sitcom episode — if that’s even possible. I kept expecting Keenan Ivory Wayans to pop out of nowhere and scream “Message” in the middle of the scenes like he did here:

And if all that contrived morality weren’t bad enough, there were White women getting their hair cornrowed in the salon.

Nooooooooo…

In conclusion, this mess of a movie was 92 minutes too long.

That is all.

T.I. isn’t to Paul at all

So I just read the blog/letter/bletter (below) that T.I. wrote from the pen about being sick and tired of going in and out of the pen all his life. I feel really sorry for him for having to suffer through so many horrible, unavoidable jail bids.

Blank stare.

Here is the text of the blog:

This experience is truly a pain I have never felt before and that’s saying a lot for a nigga who’s been down locked up as many times as I have. I see this as a real ass whoopin’. The kind you don’t just go back outside to play afterwards. You take ya ass to bed and don’t come out of your room until it’s time to go to school. I don’ t know what effect this will have on my life moving forward but I’m certainly sick and mother f*cking tired of going to jail, juve, prison, the pen, correctional facilities or whatever else you want to call it. I’d have been better off doing a 5-10 year bid one time than going in time and time again for days, weeks and months for the last 15 years of my life. Even though it’s been a long road, I’m still standing, barely but nevertheless still standing. At one time I thought my motivation for continuing was for my fans, my partna Philant, my pops, my grandmama, even for the haters or the people I let down. But nah… I got to do this shit for me!!! I’ll be God damned if I’ve come all this way and made it through so much hell to let it go down like this! F*ck that! If an hour in the dark is worth a second in the sun then pass me my mother f*ckin’ shades cause I’m ready to cash my darkest hours in…ASAP!!! A lot of folks had fathers or father figures in the house to raise them into manhood. I’m not trying to make any excuses for my situation but my father was a hustler that lived in New York. My uncle was a local big time dope boy turned 10 year federal inmate. My mother and grandparents did the best they could but I found my manhood in the trap and in prison systems. But I found it. And nan one of mine will ever have to feel the cold tight grip of a handcuff or grace the presence of a jail cell if I can help it. Over my dead body! So if you can’t respect that you ain’t rocking with my movement then Fuck you dog! I know a bunch of mother f*ckers who are…..

– Love KING

Yeah, way not to make excuses, Tip. I gotta say I’ve always been a big T.I. fan and after the gun thing and the MTV show where he helped the kids and the jail bid before this one, I really thought he’d gotten the message and was ready to change his life. I’m not going to address the jumper he “talked off the ledge” because, well that ridiculous publicity stunt has nothing to do with the subject of this post — except to illustrate that T.I. really must be sick of jail and desperate to stay out if he set up a stunt like that and actually thought it’d have an impact on his sentencing… Yeah I said it — and if you don’t think he set that up, you need Jesus.

Speaking of Jesus…

After I finished reading his letter, I decided to read thru a few of the comments. I was pleasantly surprised to see that not all of the posters were d**k riders — that a few of them saw his excuses for what they were and called him on it. But then I saw this comment. And it stopped me in my proverbial tracks.

I’m sorry, did SIRX16 compare T.I. to Paul? The Apostle Paul? Paul who wrote like 12 books of the Bible, Paul?

Man…

T.I. is to Paul as… as…

As nothing.

T.I. isn’t to Paul at all. Boooooo.

Source

I’m wit cha, Miss Sophia a.k.a. Why Terrance Howard should just quit

On Monday, Oprah (Winfrey — in case you were wondering which Oprah I was talking about) had the entire cast of The Color Purple on her show. As a person who looks for ways to incorporate quotes from this classic into everyday conversation as often as possible, I was in heaven! Oprah is just showing off this last season — I can’t take it.

But I digress.

There are tons of great quotables in this film, but I think the scene below is one of — if not THE — most memorable scene from TCP:



OooohWeeee!!! Her emotion is palpable.

Well. This morning I was subjected treated to the trailer for the new movie “Winnie” based on the life of Winnie Mandela and starring Jennifer Hudson as the lead. And… Terrance Howard as Nelson Mandela? Word? For reals? I’m saying — I’m all for equal opportunity employment, but motion picture casting probably isn’t the ideal field for the visually and aurally impaired.

Please watch this trailer. PLEASE??!??? And we’ll discuss on the other side.

OK… So. OK… OK.

First off, have the people who made this film ever laid eyes on Nelson Mandela??!?? And secondly, was his South African accent not the absolute worst you’ve heard like EVER? Geez Louise, I’m baffled by the way actors and musicians from other countries can lock down the American accent to the point where you can’t even believe they’re not American when you hear them speak — Toni Colette, Idris Elba, Chiwitel Ejiofor, etc. But when American actors try to do any other accent it sounds utterly ridiculous.

Seriously, after the first day of shooting I can’t understand why they continued making this movie. I guess Jenny has enough Oscars already — so why not… But if I were directing or financing this film I’d have watched Terrance Howard’s first set of dailies and thrown in the towel. And then I would have beat the crap out of him with it like Joe Jackson did in “The Jacksons: An American Dream” for wasting my time and my money. I could go on and on about how bad this is gonna be, but I will simply leave you with this:

“I loves Jennifer Hudson, God knows I do. But you’d have to kill me dead ‘fore I go to the theatre to see this mess.”

Post Script: I have already vowed that I will not watch a single episode of “Law & Order LA” unless or until Terrance grows a mustache. It’s just unnatural for a grown ass Black man.

Amen.

Mike Vick and musical chairs

So I ended up getting a last-minute invitation to go to the Eagles/Skins game last nite. But I’ve been sick for the last week and it was due to rain and it’s November… But then my “inviter” told me we’d be sitting in a dry, warm, tricked-out luxury box. And I thought, “Well, it’d be rude to turn him down…

As a die-harder-than-most Iggles fan, I can’t say how happy I am that I was there to witness the clinic Michael Vick put on last nite. 4 TD passes, 2 rushing TDs, 300 passing yards and 80 rushing yards — it was a thing of beauty. Understandably, FedEx Field began to clear out pretty early in the game. Now in the interest of full disclosure, it was raining pretty hard for most of the game, but a lot of Skins folks just got discouraged:

Where are all da people?

This wasn’t halftime or anything. And the stadium was full at the kickoff. But by the middle of the second quarter, there was basically no one in the top two tiers of the stadium. It was like a great big game of musical chairs where 50,000 people decided not to bother sitting back down. I can’t imagine what it looked like on TV.

I mocked my cold/flu situation, posting the following update on Facebook:

I fully regret that post, as I feel like booty today. I have a show in a few hours so I need to get it together. So I apologize cold/flu thing. Now please release me. Love, EJ