Join my street team

I suck at dating.

I do. I’ve never really been big on trying to sell myself to another person. I guess I’ve always thought, hey I’m pretty cool. If you agree, lets go bowling. That’s a good date in my book. I’m not picky I promise.

I’ve been on some really bad dates… And I’ve been on some decent ones, but overall I think I’m just over it. I’m tired and I don’t really have the energy to sift thru all the men out there to find the right one for me.

When I was in college, there was a local club promoter who used to pay me and a couple of my friends $20 a nite to pass out party flyers to promote his events. We wore matching t-shirts and would stand outside clubs and give out flyers to people that were leaving. We’d hand them out by the doors, put them on car windshields (yeah that was me ;) And for every person who came to his party and showed a pass with my code on it (they were marked) I would get $2. Great incentive for the ladies on the street team. It saved him time and advertising dollars, and even if 20 people showed up with my flyers he was only out like $60 total which was like a gold mine to me at the time.

I’ve been thinking recently that what I need is a street team for my personal life. Just pay a bunch of good-looking guys to do the work for me — wear Erin Jackson t-shirts, pass out flyers and tell other guys what a catch I am. On the front of the flyers there would be a (very flattering) photo of me in a (very) low-cut top, and on the back there would be a list of some of my best qualities, such as:

  • makes a mean lasagna and bakes cakes from scratch (this shows I’m domestic)
  • owns her own home (this shows I’m responsible)
  • drives a beat-up Corolla with only 3 hubcaps (this shows I’m not materialistic)
  • loves sports and Jack Daniel’s (this shows I’m cool)
  • has a huge music collection and will allow you to download from her iTunes (this shows I’m not selfish)

And I’d tell my boys… You see a nice car? Put a flyer on the windshield. Maybe it’s a man’s car, maybe it’s not. At this point, who can afford to be picky? I’m not sure what the incentive would be for street team members whose flyers return a successful date, but I’d make it worth their while. Maybe I’d go on a date with them. Who knows?

All I know is that I can’t do this alone.

Will you join my street team? I’m having an interest meeting next Friday.

Keep the change

OK so this is random.

Two posts about LL Cool J this month. Who’dve thunk? But this couldnt be ignored. The Ladies Love was being interviewed on the Steve Harvey Morning Show this morning. They were discussing — among other things – the keys to his longevity and his abdominal muscles. I don’t know one man in my personal life who is comfortable talking about another man’s attractiveness or body, but it seems like whenever I see or hear a man interview LL Cool J, he inevitably ends up complimenting him on his body. I think LL has mind control like Deebo.

Moving on… I said in my previous LL post this month that I have not in the past enjoyed LL interviews. So when I turned on my radio this morning I was excited to put my theory to the test… and I was pleasantly surprised. LL was giving a sort of testimony and pep talk to anyone out in radioland who ever had a dream. He said something like, “There’s no age limit to success. Colonel Sanders started KFC at age 65 and Russell [Simmons], Rick [Rubin] and I kicked off Def Jam when I was 15… If you dream of something do it.”

Go LL! … Maybe I was wrong about you.

But he then added that he also attributes a lot of his success to the fact that he tithes in church. Now, I know that should have really put me over the top — made me wanna renege on all my anti-LL-interview rhetoric. And it did — for about 30 seconds. Because about 30 seconds after LL talked about faith in God and being rewarded for that faithfulness, they played his new single, “Baby.”

Exhale.

I don’t know how many of you have heard this song (I’m sure I would never have heard it on the station I listen to if LL weren’t a guest) so I decided to post some of the lyrics below. I pulled them from the Web so I’m sure they’re not 100% accurate, but I heard it for myself this morning. The ‘important’ stuff is there… Check ’em out and meet me on the other side:

I Met this little girl, she was off the hook
I got cold chills when her body shook
Hot sex on the platter no need to cook
I let her steal my heart like a horny crook
Had her grinding and winding against my leg
She messin with my head, wanna play in the bed
Sexy pumps on, toenails red
Your bodys a gun baby, pump me full of lead
It hard to hold you when you movin’ vulgar
Peace sign on your eyes like John Travolta
My pulp ain’t fiction, it’s an addiction
To see your booty clap on the floor in the kitchen
Nasty girl, taught me all the lingo
While mama play bingo, she ride mandingo
She dont give a damn if im married or single
She makes me tingle

She likes Hip-Hop and R&B
Her life time goal is to be on TV
She looking for a man that could give her a break
Like Usher or Justin Timberlake
Im really not sure if her breasts are fake
Cuz wit whipped cream on em, they taste just like cake
We drink some beer, inside of daddy’s ’64
She shot me in the back with cupids arrow
We finish the 6-pac, she push the seat back
Pulled up her dress n she let me peep that
Im Drunk as a skunk, feeling all dirty
Truck stop bathroom at 7:30
Bought her some dessert, give a damn if its early
Head spinnin around like roller derby
Everything about her says you dont deserve me
I hope im worthy

In the back of the pickup, clothes are rip up
She see my chrome wheels, it gets more real
Running and laughing, music blasting
Side over the road, bent over crashing
Mouth all dry, can feel the urge
If you see my mama, dont say a word
The cops wanna know im a word are slurred
Dont ask me officer ask her
Wanna another drink baby she like sure
Wanna hit the club she like I dont curr
She all in the rearview doin her hurr
Hairspray and lip gloss everywhurr
This all happens on an average day
Your life is a trip girl, im here to stay
Never had a girl make me feel this way
Even tho I had to pay

I’m not sure God wants 10 percent of the proceeds from that. I’m just saying.

Never had a girl make me feel this way / Even tho I had to pay

Really??? Had to pay???

Hey LL, Jesus just called.  He said you can keep your dime.

Contribute to what, exactly?

So my mom got an e-mail from ‘Hillary Clinton’ this morning. Yesterday she took Hillz up on her invitation to go to her website and tell her how she felt about her campaign and her candidacy… Below is the reply she received. Whatever. The most confusing part of the whole letter for me is the ‘contribute’ button at the bottom.

Word?

What exactly are people supposed to be contributing to? It’s over.

Fall back, ma.

hillaryletter.jpg

If cab drivers in D.C. didn’t pick up Black people

They’d be unemployed. That’s a given. But even though I managed to hail a cab last nite — 4 cabs actually  — I never got a ride home. And that’s just as bad.

Now, of course I’m not new to the concept that cab drivers, chinese food carry outs drivers, etc. don’t always wanna travel to what folks consider the hood at nite, but dammit, if you refuse to enter an entire quadrant of the city, it’s time to rethink your career choice.

I’d been out of my house since 7:30 AM, so by the time I got off stage at about 9:30 PM I was ready to hop in a cab, go home and make myself a turkey sandwich and go to sleep. I was in Adams Morgan and I got a cab pretty quickly…

I got in and shut the door and here’s what transpired next:

Punk-ass cabbie #1: [Inaudible grunt] Where you going?

Me: [Street number, Street name] Southeast.

Punk-ass cabbie #1: NO.

No? Really? Cause I think the answer is yes. That is absolutely where I’m going. But he didn’t move. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t even ask me to get out of the cab. He just sat there. So I flicked him off and got out of the cab.

So now I hail another cab, and here’s what transpired next:

Bitch-ass cabbie #2: [Gurgle]

Me: Hi, I’m going to [Street number, Street name]……………….. Southeast.

Bitch-ass cabbie #2: Sorry, I have to pick someone up by 10.

Me: Then you shouldn’t have stopped.

Bitch-ass cabbie #2: Sorry, No.

Again no movement. Just a No. Once again I flipped him off and got out of the cab. Pissed. To the point of maximum pisstivity… But I tried again.

This time I was picked up by an American Black cab driver. I’m not saying that for any other reason than I figured., “Finally… This brother is gonna understand where I’m coming from. He knows people who live in Southeast. Hell, he may live over there too. Yay!” So I get in the cab, shake it off — ready to tell him about the 2 other drivers who wouldn’t take me home when…

Bald-Uncle-Tom-ass cabbie #3: Good evening, sista

Me: [Exhale] Hi, how are you? I’m going to [Street number, Street name] Southeast.

Now at this point I’ve unclenched my jaw. I’m rolling my neck around, ready to close my eyes for the 20 minute or so ride across the river, when…

Bitch-ass cabbie #3: Awww, hell no. You gon’ have to find another ride.

Alright, am I being punked. Really? What happened to “Good evening, sista?” This time as I was getting out of the cab, I added some colorful profanity to my bird flipping. It felt good to get that out, but I was still standing on the corner with no ride home. I won’t even go into what happened with Cumin-smelling-ass-cabbie #4 cause I think you see where this is going, but suffice it to say I had to go back into the show and wait for it to be over so my friend Jason could drive hella out of his way to take me home. (Thanks, J).

Now I know some of you are thinking, “That’s illegal, EJ. They can’t do that. You should have gotten their permit numbers and reported them.” And I gotta tell you. Each time it happened I thought the same thing. But I was exhausted and in disbelief and each time I told myself… No way is the next guy gonna do the same thing… Now I wish I’d done it, because as my boy John pointed out, D.C. Mayor Fenty is big into cracking down on this type of thing. A letter with the four drivers’ numbers may have done some good.

Also as I was typing the paragraph before last,  I remembered the “Looking Ass N***a Youtube clip that I saw on a friend’s blog and it made me smile. Maybe it will make you smile as well. Here is his explanation of the title phrase in case you don’t quite get it… ENJOY!

For those of you not familiar with all the ins and outs of black culture the term, “Looking Ass Nigga” is an insult. It’s like playing the dozens. Here’s how it goes, You think of an insult about a person, and then you say the insult and follow it with the phrase, “Looking ass nigga”. For example, an insult one could spit at Michael Jackson would be a “Ol Chimp Loving Single White Female Looking ass Nigga.”

Get it?

Source

It’s not delivery, it’s…

No not DiGiorno.

So yes, I live in Southeast D.C. Do I live in the worst neighborhood? No. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being: DUCK NINJA!), I’d rate the relative sheist of mine and the surrounding blocks a 6.

So why did the delivery guy at the Chinese spot tonite say that he’d deliver my food, but I had to walk to the end of the block to pick it up? That doesn’t sound like delivery at all, especially when you consider that the damn carry out is only like three blocks away. I’m already in my jammies and my hair is wet, or else normally I’d walk and get it myself. I told him I wouldn’t be walking to the corner and he says, “Why you don’t just pick up? You lazy.”

WORD?

Note to Danny’s Chinese Food and Sub Shop Owner because he/she is a regular reader: 1) You can’t advertise delivery and then tell people they’re lazy when they ask for their dinner to be delivered. On their menu it ‘clearly’ — and i use this word hesitantly — says “WE DELIVERY – MENIMUM 10 DOLLAR FOOD”. (hahaha :)

2) You chose to set up your business in the hood. So if safety is the reason your driver doesn’t want to deliver in the neighborhood, then you need to find someone who will.

I was telling my friend Dawan who was over for some Chinese yumminess a few months back that I’ve had several talks with the delivery guy on the occasions when I didn’t go pick up my food about how he refuses to look me in the eye. I hesitate to even use this cliche, but ‘I was raised’ to spend my money only with people who show me respect. Delivery dude doesn’t even say hello to me when he comes, and he takes my money and gives me change all without looking at me. I probably would have quit this carry out months ago if it weren’t so amazingly delicious. But here’s the thing, when I asked him why he won’t make eye contact with me, he tells me that he was robbed twice when delivering food and that the people who did it told him not to look at him — to forget their faces — and scared him from reporting the incident to the police.

Now even in the midst of all my stomach-growling pulpitting, I have to admit I felt bad for him then. BUT I have lost all sympathy now that he called me lazy. Anywayz, let me go and try and find something to put in my tummy. Latah.