Kyle Barker Is Not Broke!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have randomly seen posts on Facebook and Twitter about Kyle from Living Single being in a TJ Maxx or Marshall's Christmas commercial, and that he is either desperate or broke to be doing commercials at all. Well if you have kids or a husband who ignores you to play video games you should know that this is not true.

Terrence T.C. Carson is doing quite well for himself doing voice overs for video games and animation. He has been the voice of Mase Windu in every Star Wars game since 2002 and is now providing his voice for the television series. One of the most popular projects he has done recently is The God Of War Trilogy for the PlayStation 2 & 3 in which he is the voice of the lead character Kratos.

Now I realize that Denzel Washington is in no hurry to trade places with this guy but he probably makes well into the 6 figures by sitting on his ass reading off of a piece of paper for a few hours at a time. I know this post is extremely random, but this guy is living my dream by making money for no other reason that his voice is recordable.

On one last random note, my mother was never a fan of the show Friends because she felt like that show was a rip off of Living Single. I may have to break this down later.

A New Christmas Classic

Sensual Santa (main)

When my homie P is not searching for fine leisure suits like the one he has on in the picture above, he is crafting beats like this for those who want to do some Christmas day pimping. Download this now!!!

1995 BMW csi

If I was selling dope in 1995, this would have been my ride of choice. Now I know it sounds really negative to say the only way I could have bought this car is if I was selling drugs but all of the adults I knew who were making what I considered a lot of money in 1995 went to work everyday. This car retailed for around $90,000 15 years ago, and unless you sold crack rock or had a wicked jumpshot you were not seeing one of these.

I like this car so much because unlike the other BMWs at the time or even now, it was intentional flashy and loud. If the other Beamers were Brooks Bros. suits, the 850 is something Steve Harvey would wear. This model had a V-12 engine which was so ridiculous that the the end of 1996 the csi could not be sold in the United States because it did not comply with new emission regulations without substantial re-engineering. It was actually electronically limited to a top speed of 155 mph.

Even though this car only got about 12 miles per gallon, I would drive around town all day blasting "Warning" by the Notorious BIG for no reason but to let the suckas know I am not putting up with any foolishness. I would switch it up at night when I pull up to the club, I'd play "I'll Take Her" by Ill & Al Scratch. I hated that group but Brian Mcknight was on the hook of that song to smooth it out, and it just seems like something you should play before you step into the club with the sole intent of stealing some fool's woman!

A Christmas Story

Christmas was always really great at my house when my younger sister and I were kids, actually it is still really good now that we are both in our 30s. My father put up lights like Clark Griswald and filled our house with the sounds of his many soulful Christmas mixtapes. My mom filled our house with black Santa Clauses and since she taught at a mostly white school, her students would always hook her up with all kinds of Christmas baked goods and candy. She was also trying to raise good Christian children so there was always a really fly Nativity scene in the house with a black baby Jesus. I know this is all heart warming but I am about to write about the meanest thing I ever did at Christmas or ever for that matter.

It was Christmas 1986 and in my house we always asked for one big thing. That year, I asked for Metroplex a.k.a. Autobot City and my sister wanted a Rainbow Bright doll. These were pretty easy requests because they were popular toys that would be easy to find and relatively inexpensive. Well the price and availability was not the problem, at least with Metroplex. The problem was with Rainbow Bright. You see, every major toymaker that makes dolls makes an African American version of it's most popular dolls. Ironically Rainbow Bright was the exception so despite my sister's pleadings, that doll was not coming into our household. Now I know that seems a bit extreme, especially when it comes to a little girl's happiness at Christmas but before you new school parents flip out about it let me explain. Understand my sister and I were barely a generation removed from state sponsored segregation. My mother and father made that stand because they wanted to make sure that they were raising proud black children in the suburbs and if a toy company was not into acknowledging our culture they could not have any of my parent's hard earned money.

Well, Christmas morning rolls around and I am the first person in the house up. I see Metroplex all shiny and new under the tree. I pick him up and run into my sisters room and say "look Erin I got Metroplex and you got Rainbow Bright"! She ran up to the living room to look under the tree to see Rainbow Bright was nowhere to be found. I laughed like a little 9 year old douchebag for minute before I saw the dissapointment in my little sisters face and realized what I did was really foul. Some years passed and this became a story my sister and I could laugh at but the laughter never made it right.

A few of years ago my friend Jaime was cleaning out her basement and one of the things she was about to give away was a Rainbow Bright doll in almost perfect condition. I asked her if I could have it and she said "sure". Fast forward to Christmas day 2007, my family is taking turns opening gifts and my sister opens a gift that has a note on it that says "I hope this makes up for Christmas 1987". When my sister saw Rainbow Bright it elicited a jubilant reaction that I had never seen out of her during any other Christmas and when I saw her tear up a little over it, I knew that Rainbow Bright doll meant more to her than I could have ever understood. Now I am not usually in the business of going over my parent's heads, but my sister is a strong, proud, HBCU graduate who is making a good living for herself in Atlanta. I think they did their job well enough that having Rainbow Bright in the house was not going to undo any of this. I don't remember to much more about that Christmas but It was the best Christmas ever.

While I was writing this a random thought popped into my head. What did the parents of little Asian girls do?

Good Riddance

It finally looks like Brett Farve is going to be put out to pasture and I could not be happier. I am convinced that the Metrodome roof did not colapse on Sunday because of a blizzard but because it could not stand to see Brett Farve throw one more interception. For all of his good ole boy appeal, this guy is deep down is one of the biggest phonies in the NFL. If the mainstream media could have stayed off of his nuts for half of a news cycle they would be able to see it like I see it. This year he got a 2 million dollar raise and did not go to training camp. Anybody else they would be considered lazy & greedy, but when it is Farve, he just doesn't need as much practice as everybody else. Maybe he would have been in a little better shape for this season if he had gone to traing camp instead of throwing the ball around with high school kids in Mississippi. If Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Peyton Manning can show up for training camp and lead thier teams with Super Bowl rings earned in this THIS decade, who the hell is Brett Farve to skip training camp?

For all 507 touchdowns he has thrown, this guy has not won been to or won a Super Bowl since the Playstation 1 was the shit, and everyone still talks about how great he is. I'm not saying 507 touchdowns is not impressive but if you are going to bring that up you also have to bring up that he is the all time leader in interceptions as well with 334. I am almost convinced he has hung around these last few years not to solidify his legacy, but to put all of numbers out of reach of the only active player who could break all of his records, Peyton Manning. The only record Manning has no chance of breaking is Farve's record number of interceptions. He would have to throw almost 28 a year for he next five years to do that.

Watching Brett Farve play football this year has been like watching Muhammad Ali fight Larry Holmes in 1980. After 20 years, there have been flashes of past brilliance but the ability to be effective as an elite quarterback has been beaten out of him. If he has any class or sense he will not put that uniform again and save himself the embarrasment of getting knocked out of another game. For all of my hate, I acknowledge the guy is a first ballot shoe in for the Hall Of Fame but since I saw him crying like a bitch at the after a win over the Bears at the end of the 2006 season he has also been a hall of fame drama queen.

The Best Man = Boyz N' The Hood 2

The 1990's was quite a time in African American Cinema. The Early 90's were defined by the rise of the the "hood movie" which would have you believe all that every black person in America lived somewhere near south central Los Angeles, substituted malt liquor for one of the basic food groups and had some sort of daddy issues. By the end of the 90's the pendulum had swung completely in the other direction with the "Jack & Jill movie" these films revolved around all of the beautiful, educated, and successful black people who's biggest problems stemmed from being beautiful, educated, and successful. The movie that defined the "hood" era was John Singleton's Boyz N The Hood. The movie that kicked it off for the "Jack & Jill" was Malcolm Lee's The Best Man. The thing is black Hollywood is so small that many of the actors that were in "hood" movies at the start of the decade wound up being in "Jack & Jill" movies at the end of the decade.

Now because I often daydream when I am supposed to be working, I realized that these movies are linked because The Best Man is what would have happened if Ricky had he not been shot and killed at the end of Boyz N The Hood. If Ricky had gone on to play college football at USC he would have met people like the characters in The Best Man who wound up being his closest friends, and he would have gone on to be drafted by the New York Giants as a running back therefore providing him with the means to finance the lavish wedding in The Best Man. Lance Sullivan is the evolution of Ricky Baker. I will take it a step further because not only was Morris Chesnut in both films, so was Nia Long. Her character in Boyz N The Hood followed mark ass(loser) Trey down to Atlanta to attend Spelman. Atlanta is a long way from LA, so she probably would have become home sick and enrolled in USC to be closer to her mother. That is how Ricky/Lance & Brandi's/Jordan's friends all know each so well and are all happy and smiling in the picture above.

What point about black life and and the portrayal of African Americans in cinema can be drawn from this analysis? I'm not really sure I just know that I really like both of these movies and I should probably stop daydreaming so much at work.