Seventh Time's The Charm...

Wassup, Y'all!


"Who said this water is toxic?"
After all the heat that the president's been taking for the federal government's extremely lackluster showing during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, I'm pleased to report that GW's been taking the criticism to heart and has ventured down to the affected regions for the seventh time since Katrina dropped a world-class whipping on the Gulf Coast. Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise for a man who's spent nearly 20% of his presidency on vacation that he managed to kill two birds with one stone. *sigh* That's just wrong in so many ways, y'all. What ever happened to compassionate conservatism? On the other hand, that is a really nice fish old man Bush reeled in...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Not Everybody Hates Chris...

Wassup, Y'all!

The numbers for Chris Rock's new UPN sitcom look tight. During that timeslot, Everybody Hates Chris did more business than Joey over on NBC! When have you *ever* seen trailer park UPN outdraw high society NBC? Anybody? I had the opportunity to check out the premier episode with a sexy north side shorty over the weekend and I'm here to tell y'all (just like I did when I previewed the success of the show a few weeks back) the show in general and Tyler James Williams (who plays young Chris Rock) in particular are hitting and holding...

I had to crack up when they played the song Ebony and Ivory during a slo-mo scene of Chris getting a beat down by a north side bully at his school. So far, so good, y'all. Everybody Hates Chris retains a slot in the TiVo Season Pass list. Y'all know I'm tight with those slots so I must be feeling it.

I also introduced shorty north side to that tripped out show on Showtime called Weeds. That joint is about a suburban housewife - Mary Louise Parker in the attached glossy - who loses her husband and begins selling weed / endo / chronic / cheeby / reefer / mary jane / cannibis in her rich, north side subdivision. She slides down to the hood every so often to get a new supply from her south side dealers and its the interaction between these folks and how old girl tries to maintain her normal life despite being a dealer herself that make this joint so funny. If y'all like homeboy Malco Romany (3rd from the left in the final glossy) in the 40-year Old Virgin (if you haven't peeped that flick by now, y'all are missing a treat - that joint is *tripped* out), you'll really like him in Weeds as he plays the son of the matriach pot supplier (who spends her time cooking southern cuisine in the midst of distributing nickle and dime bags and swooping the cash. Malco seems to have a little love jones going on for Mary Louise and old Tyrone has to admit - there's something a bit appealing about old girl...can't put my finger on it though. I caught her doing her thing in NYC earlier this year in a play called Reckless and she's got that wide-eyed, quirky thing down to a science.

Anyway, if y'all are looking to get your laugh on, you can't go wrong with either of these shows but since my boy 'Tini Mack *still* doesn't have cable at the crib, I have to go with Everybody Loves Chris since that show is available to the masses and knocks it out in a quick and tasty thirty minutes.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Ready to get my Roll on...

Wassup, Y'all!

Fortunately, this roll ain't got nothing to do with Daunte Culpepper and those bogus Minnesota Vikings! What's up with those boyz? I'm losing money on them every week! No - as you can see from the premium glossy of Megan Goode, the roll I'm jibber-jabbering about is the retro 70's skating rink joint Roll Bounce due out this Friday...

Lately with Chris Rock's upcoming UPN series Everybody Hates Chris and now this joint, I'm blissfully awash in old school 70's jams. Roll Bounce takes it's name from the Imajin cut Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll and as soon as I saw the trailer featuring the wide roller rink with the tight disco lighting system and outline, four wheel skates with the toe brakes I was like awwwwww yeah - just like back in the day when biddy bop Tyrone was getting his roll on with the little shortys. Never saw any shortys that looked like Megan Goode at my spot though...

Roll Bounce looks like that hip hop dance flick You Got Served on skates and features young buck Bow Wow, Megan, Chi McBride, Mike Epps and Charley Murphy to name a few. I also caught young shorty Jurnee Smollett in the trailer. I liked old girl in Wanda Sykes blink-to-DVD sitcom Wanda At Large. Coincidently, both Jurnee and Megan starred (along with Lynn Whitfield) in that small (but good) flick Eve's Bayou.
Man - what ever happened to that whole Smollett clan? Running all around looking like the black Osmonds? Guess they'll have to find their way to a 'What's the Dilly With' post sometime soon. Anyway, y'all know I've been weak with picking flicks this season, so I have to be due right about now, but if this joint is anything like Bow Wow's last outing in Johnson Family Vacation old Tyrone may have to duck out early Megan Goode or no Megan Goode (who also hasn't be a harbinger of a good flick *since* Eve's Bayou either...). We'll see...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

What's the Dilly With Treach?

Wassup, Y'all!

Sorry about the spotty posting - all the sudden my phone's been blowing up with invitations so I decided to swoop one and head down to a blues club last night to catch a hot act from a young cat called Pistol Pete. Old boy was off the hook, y'all. His web site mentions Jimi Hendrix as one of his guitar influences and he rocked his joint just like Mr. Purple Haze for a tight 90 minute set. Annnnnnyway, after that heartwarming transformation outing of D'Angelo a few weeks back, I thought it might be a good idea to kick a set of regular posts checking out the happenings of folks who've sunk back into obscurity after their fifteen minute shelf life expired. So from time to time I'm going to kick a What's the Dilly With? post to help y'all get those warm feelings back again. Today we profile the original uptown vandal who's scandal we can't handle - Treach...

Somehow, Treach found his way to the side of fine Kerry Washington at a premier of Spike Lee's blink-to-video joint She Hate Me. A quick look through IMDB reveals that our boy Ant'ny Criss has been making a killing off of just being his thug self. For me, homeboy will always be Philky - the cold blooded dealer from Showtime's retired Soul Food who was cold enough to bump off a little junvenile thug-in-training who tried to lighten some of his weight. On the big screen, Treach has starred in such Oscar hopefuls as 3 AM (as Bass), Empire (as Chedda), Conviction (as Tank), Playas Ball (as Ricardo) and Today You Die (as Ice Cool). I don't plan on mentioning his turn as Tyrone (oh *hell* naw) back in the day in First Time Felon or his dip to the west side in the horror movie El Chupacabra (what??).

Seems like just yesterday that our boy Treach and Pepa were recreating that ghetto wedding from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air when Will's boy Jazz bopped down the aisle with his bride to song Float On by the Floaters. Ahhhh, Float On - remember that joint, y'all? Aquarius....Libra....Leo...Cancer...Ralph...Charles...Paul...Larry. Aquarius and my name is Ralph. Now I like a woman who loves her freedom... Can't hear lyrics like that anymore. Now it's all Shake that booty, shake that booty, shake that booty, girl. Not a zodiac sign shoutout anywhere in sight.... Hmmm, kinda like Treach's a$$ seen above in a custom Huster Phi Hustler sweatshirt from Hustlers University. I'd say more like Broke Phi Broke (we ain't got IT) from Kanye West's Late Registration CD if he keeps picking those choice movie roles, y'all.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Lynn's headed to the family reunion...

Wassup, Y'all!

If you're a good actor, you tend to get defined by your signature roles. For heart-shaped face hottie Lynn Whitfield - she got defined by two. One where she put her foot all into the role of the internationally renowned singer/dance Josephine Baker. The other was where she put her foot all up Martin Lawrence's a$$ in A Thin Line Between Love and Hate. Even though that joint was a comedy - Lynn's off the deep end character gave me more willies than Glenn Close's bunny boiling turn in Fatal Attraction. Yeah - I know Lynn has kicked it in a ton of stuff since, but I can't shake off those two images.

LW is about to pop back up on the silver screen next February when Tyler Perry debuts the next installment of his Grandma-ma series - Madea's Family Reunion. That's right, y'all. Not only do we get to sample another serving of crazy a$$ Madea, who stole the show in Diary of A Mad Black Woman (which remains in eternal repeat in Pheeb's DVD player...), we get a sweet shorty side dish of tight Lynn Whitfield to set the party off right...

A quick peek over at blackfilm.com reveals a serious casting line up for Family Reunion. Such south side notables as Boris Kodjoe, Blair Underwood and Henry Simmons star (I can hear y'all shortys out there swooning) as well as Tyler Perry himself reprising his trifecta of characters - Madea, Uncle Joe and Brian. The shorty side is held down by Lynn, Tangi Miller and Jennifer Lewis - wouldn't be a south side flick without Jennifer, y'all. That's like having a catfish fry without the catfish! Hopefully the joint is good. I was struck by the even division among the south side nation to Diary. I was middle of the road on it, myself. It had it's moments but it kind of seemed more like a home video rather than a commercial movie but that's just me being bourgoise, y'all. Truthfully the split seemed to fall between the suburban and urban camps. Regardless of your thoughts on the movie as a whole, I have to admit that Madea was funny - "go on and call the po-po, ho".

That said, maybe some of you more astute readers can solve this mystery for me. If you peep that glossy of Perry dressed as Madea, that character looks almost *exactly* the same and the Grandma-ma character that Larry Johnson dropped courtesy of Converse back in the day. If I'm not mistaken, LJ's Grandma-ma showed up in the early 90's. So did Tyler Perry cop the concept or was Madea already cooking? If anyone knows - holler back and drop some knowledge on a brother! Truth be told - both those characters crack me up and make me thankful that I never ran into either one at a dimly lit house party....

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

What NOT to joke about: Exhibit A

Wassup, Y'all!

The lead glossy already sets the tone for a post I never thought I'd have to write (because I was giving some folks too much credit for having common sense...). I was over at Cinematical today and stumbled across a blurb about Jamie Foxx going off on the set of Michael Mann's upcoming movie Miami Vice. So I'm like, let me peep this joint to see what Jamie's got to complain about - probably some J-Lo diva-ness going on where he only wants green M&Ms in his trailer piled high in the cups of a Victoria's Secret Ipex bra held by a topless Brazilian supermodel or something like that. Turns out it's nothing like that and that he was rightfully going off on a couple idiot stage hands who thought it would be humorous to approach his set double David Brown with a noose. If you're still clueless on why south siders find this sh*t serious as a heart attack, meet me after the jump to get an education...

Regular readers of my blog know I'm all for a good laugh and my humor can be a bit biting at times, but I do have common sense y'all and you won't ever find a column that seeks to find humor in things that are blatantly racist. I appreciate the diversity of the blogosphere and I've learned alot from the thoughtful, serious, humorous, and heartfelt postings I've read. For some of the more uneducated that think that in 2005 enough time has passed that you now feel comfortable stepping to a south sider dressed in black face or calling him a ni**ger (despite what the hell you see and hear on hip-hop videos or on Chappelle's Show) or pulling out a noose as a party prop or a weak a$$ joke - my advice is this: Don't...ever, unless the result you seek is a world class (and justified) beat down. Propping a noose is particularly foul and before you think to do it you'd be wise to spend a few hours at your local bookstore or library absorbing a book called Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. After you learn about how north side lynchings of south siders (in many cases accompanied by perpetrators setting them on fire while they were dying) was pretty much considered a 'Saturday Social' - entertainment fit for the whole family (children included), you'll see why south siders have no patience or humor for that bullsh$t.

I guess we can be happy that on the Miami Vice set, the gats are all loaded with blanks as I'm pretty sure both Jamie and David would have been ventilating some northside a$$ busting a few caps after that bogus encounter...

Okay, now let me massage my earlobes and drop a few Woooo Saahhh before I catch a case, y'all.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Comfort Flicks - I feel the need...

Wassup, Y'all!

I can say with almost 100% confidence that homeboy Malone Zone readers will instantly recognize this lead glossy. It is, of course, the lead in scene to the first hop taken by the hot shot pilots of the Miramar Fighter Weapons School, better known as the aerial combat school and cinematic masterpiece Top Gun. Now as far as I know, when male babies are born, they leave the hospital with three things: their tanks topped off with testosterone, an inability to hold a conversation with a shorty for more than two consecutive minutes and a copy of the Top Gun DVD. When times get hard or a homeboy needs a pick me up from getting dogged by his girl at work, there's no better comfort flick than watching Maverick and Goose get their 'need for speed' on. It's like Lays Potato chips for the eyes, y'all. You can't watch it just once...

Now shortys have their favorites too, but most of their joints have to do with a wayward homeboy getting his in the end (Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Waiting to Exhale) or of finding improbable love (How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle (which featured that other shorty flick An Affair To Remember...)) - y'all know how they do. But homeboys avoid the emotions and dig the hardware and there's none more impressive than a F-4 Tomcat with the afterburners kicked in. Sure there are a few other flicks waiting on the bench for their shot in the DVD player like Heat, Scarface, Face/Off and the like - and all are good to exercise that surround sound gear, but nothing is like dropping in Top Gun and listening to Maverick coax his missile lock to 'Lock up, baby. Lock up' during a dogfight. That's good eatin', y'all. Gooood eatin'.

However, I do have to give a passing nod to another sleeper flick that connected with me years ago when I first started working my tech job (now y'all know why I'm in the basement...). I fell through a friends crib and checked out the video of a movie called Into the Night - a quirky flick starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. It connected with me because Jeff was a LA engineer who was having trouble sleeping at night, but whenever he got to work he would nod right out. He was getting burned out by his dry a$$ tech job - car pooling, dull technical meeting - the whole nine - and I am like Damn Jeff - I feeling you, homeboy! So one sleepless night, Jeff decided to just drive out to LAX and watch the planes take off and ends up sitting in a parking garage wondering what he's doing with his life. Then out of nowhere Michelle Pfeiffer crashes down on the hood of his car screaming because she's being chased by a crew who wants to kill her (watch the movie to find out why, y'all). She jumps in the car with Jeff and just like that they're off on a night of car chases, shoot outs and straight thuggery - in other words Jeff finally falls into some excitement. Just like with Top Gun where a brother daydreams of blasting off a carrier deck strapped inside a F4, there's that other daydream of having a hot shorty just fall out of the sky and take you on a wild adventure (preferably one that doesn't end at the bottom of a canyon like Thelma and Louise or at the end of a hail of bullets like Bonnie and Clyde...). Every now and then, it's worth getting off your normal beaten movie path and checking out flicks you normally wouldn't. It doesn't have to be a blockbuster to connect with you. Normally it's the smaller flicks that more closely mirror every day reality. They may not help your surround sound system crack your drywall, but they will leave you with a little something something. Into the Night dropped in '85 y'all and I'm still typing about it so don't act like y'all don't have a few of your own closet comfort flicks stashed away for a rainy day too....

(Quick Hit: If you want to get your laugh on check out this glossy over on The Dark Stuff - Howard keeps bringing it...)

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Serena getting ready to Flirt!

Wassup, Y'all!

Faithful readers will remember a few posts back when I dropped my worldly opinion on the Venus and Serena reality show - Venus & Serena: For Real and mentioned that it wasn't hard to see why it was that Venus' game was getting back on track while Serena's was regressing. Remember when I said old girl had too many off court distractions - her fashion design firm Aneres, her TV gigs, modeling gigs, her weedy looking, Hollywood director boyfriend Brett Ratner (and weedy looking is a compliment for old boy...), yada, yada, yada. All forces which conspired to cut into her practice time and open the door for her knee and ankle injuries (and lackidasical rehabbing). Watching her pout, shout and bounce her racket on the court while older sister Venus was bringing the heat in the U.S. Open only reinforced that view for me, y'all. So it comes as no surprise to learn that instead of going behind closed doors to do some Rocky Balboa style training to get the #1 ranking back (which somehow Maria Sharapova can get to *while* she's morphing into the latest 'It' girl model) our girl Serena has signed on with Estee Lauder to be "the 2006 guest creator for its Flirt! cosmetics line". Serena! Homegirl - how about trying to flirt with the #1 ranking?...

Now I was happy to hear Serena say during the show that she needed to "cut him loose" - referring to weedy Ratner and his habit of popping into town for a few hours for a booty call to hang with Serena then zooming back out of town to 'take care of some business'. Brett we know that Hollywood casting couch never gets cold, homeboy (even for weedy looking dudes like you). Anyway - I'm like Go 'head, homegirl - that's one less distraction in the way! Then BAM, next thing you know Serena's in New York talking to an accessory company about getting some gear to compliment her fashion line. I didn't see the first ball machine, tennis court or racket while old girl was 'taking her meeting'. Now I can't say I blame old girl for trying to get some of hers, but I also hear her continue to complain about how she's not used to being so lowly ranked as she tries to have her cake and eat it too.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Venus is handling her bidness, y'all - running, doing dexterity drills, working on her game, winning Wimbledon - y'all get the picture. True Serena's got the badunkadunk (actually in Serena's case badunkadunk seems so inadequate a word...) in the family but Venus seems to have the savvy, drive and determination to be sucessful on the court. She seems to have the proper perspective - that tennis is the engine that runs the rest of the ambition train. So in the meantime, Serena can do all the pouting and racket bouncing she wants to - if she wants to get back to the top of the game, she's know what to do and it ain't got a damn thing to do with flirting, y'all.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

To Live And Die In LA

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the devastation along the Gulf Coast, particularly the pictures still streaming out of New Orleans. If there was ever a glossy that summed up the poignant horror going on in the Big Easy I'd tap this one by AP photographer Dave Martin. After four days of laying exposed to the elements some kind (non governmental) souls honored Vera Smith by respectfully covering her body in a burial shroud and forming a makeshift grave for her. With the primary evacuation of the city nearing completion and focus now turning to the recovery of the bodies left behind - fatalites caused by both Hurricane Katrina and the government's (federal, state *and* local) ineptitude in the face of crisis - I'm not sure I'm ready to absorb what's coming. It's like a surreal scene from that Steven King movie The Stand, where a super virus has wiped out most of the population of the world leaving a small band of survivors to cope and - like in Europe during the Black Plague - cryers moved around the towns yelling "Bring out your dead!" so the victims could be collected. Matter of fact, I'm sure I'm *not* ready, but that process is coming and the most heartbreaking thing of all is that it's not a movie.

Check the sidebar for a link to the Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort. It'll be a semi-permanent fixture for the foreseeable future and as the title says - give 'til it hurts, y'all because, as British martyr Reverend John Bradford so clearly observed, "There but for the grace of God go [I]". Rest in peace, Vera.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Eric Benet Wants To Be Loved...

Wassup, Y'all!

Okay, I know it's been pretty deep around here lately and that we're still in the midst of this crisis, but I'm also aware that part of my value here in the Malone Zone is to bring a smile to your mug, so, though my heart's still heavy, I'm headed back into the game. First, y'all will notice the lead glossy is not typical for the Malone Zone but I'm also aware that I *do* have some well informed, shorty readers (including one down in FL that I just redirected here yesterday) so I'll donate to their cause by profiling ho-ish, Halle Berry heartbreaker Eric Benet who recently dropped a new album called Hurricane (in stores now!!) If y'all dip over to that link, you'll get to hear a few samples from the album (and the title song is actually pretty good), but there's one cut on the album that I just had to crack on. It's the joint aptly titled, I Want To Be Loved. Hmmm, pretty ironic for a self proclaimed, 12 step sex addict...

Now I'm not hatin', y'all. I'm just statin'. Well, actually I am hating a little bit since I'd kill for old boy's bone structure (which seems to be the fuel for his sex addition from jump - if he looked like Flava Flav he'd have a whole lot fewer opportunities to stray...). But I have to be honest, y'all, every time I see a glossy of Halle (or catch her in live action on the silver screen or TV) I'm like, Eric - homeboy - WTF? Man, that addiction must have had its hooks into you DEEP, man! Kinda like sex crack or something like that.

But then I start going back to a view I had with Thandie Newton once I saw her in Crash that had me wondering is the Halle outside as tight as the Halle inside? She seems sweet enough - a little goofy, good sense of humor and clearly doesn't take herself too seriously since she did pick up her Razzy Award for Worst Actress (Catwoman) in person. But either she has turrrible instincts for choosing appropriate men (your Honor, we'd like to submit Wesley Snipes, David Justice and Eric Benet as state's exhibits Dimwit, Knucklehead, and Fool) - and I'm kinda leaning in that direction - *or* those boys know something we don't.

Seems to me the only real way to find out for sure is for Old Tyrone to take one for the team and conduct his own experiment. Unfortunately, my calls to Ms. Berry have gone unanswered for the last six weeks. That's 2,329 calls, y'all! Old girl's eating up my Anytime minutes like Raisinet in the movie theater, but I'm determined to see this through. I think it's only right that I clear her name once and for all. As for the Ho-ish Halle Heartbreaker, well old boy's going to put those 12 steps to the test when he hits the road to prop his new album. In that case too, even though I think what he did to Halle was most foul, I'd be willing to help the brother through it by sitting outside his hotel room and redirecting all those temptations down the hall to my room. *sigh* The sacrifices I make, y'all just don't know!

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

A Pause for the Cause

Wassup, Y'all!

Long time Malone Zone readers will remember that I busted on the scene during the late stages of the 2004 Presidential Election season and cut my teeth on political commentary. Since those times, I've moved on to a buffet of other topics but with the unbelievable ruckus going on in New Orleans, I must interrupt my regularly scheduled blogcast to get some stuff off my mind. If you want an eloquent and well thought out discussion on the government's poor response to the crisis, I've read none better than my boy Howard's take over at The Dark Stuff in his post 'A Can't Do Government'. Give it a peep, y'all. My take is going to be a little more personal...

First of all - let me look past the government's piss poor response to the human crisis occurring along the Gulf Coast. I need to talk to my south side homeys in New Orleans who are partaking in (non essential) looting and strong armed thuggery - WTF, y'all? Y'all got the eyes of the nation and the world on you and you're out there showing your a$$ and causing *more* problems for your own folks? If there was *ever* a time that Chris Rock's breakdown on the difference between black folks and ni**as applies - it's now. Y'all fools are a straight up, hands down embarassment to the south side nation.

Second - my boys 'Tini Mack and DLT were personally touched by the events as both had loved ones in New Orleans. 'Tini Mack has been working since Tuesday both in Chicago and with Search & Rescue in New Orleans to help get his goddaughter out of Xavier University where she and others were stranded in a flooded dorm. The good news is they finally got airlifted off the dorm roof (after spending two days trapped) and Jesse Jackson helped get them from New Orleans to Southern University in Baton Rouge. Hopefully both 'Tini and his goddaughter will be back in Chi-Town on Sunday.

Third,I'm watching the news coming out of NO and I can't believe this is happening in the United States, y'all. How the hell can the government response be so bad when they knew a Category 5 hurricane was headed toward NO? I have to give dap to all the folks now calling out GW and the boys (including Republicans who know there's no positive way to spin this mess) but in particular I'd like to single out shorty Senator Mary Landrieu from LA. I've been a fan of hers for a while, y'all and I appreciated the role she played a few months back to band with that group of progressive Senators who helped avoid that 'nuclear option' showdown in the Senate that would have stripped the minority of their ability to filibuster judicial appointments. Interestingly, Mary was raising the alarm well before all this ruckus kicked off when she tried to call attention to GW's huge cut in the Army Corps of Engineers' budget in New Orleans. At the time, Mary broke it down like this:

"I think it's extremely shortsighted," Landrieu said. "When the Corps of Engineers' budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana and they are (of) vital economic interest to the entire nation."

Hmmm, looking $3-$4/gallon gas prices in the face (around the nation) I'd say she knows what she's taking about. Anyway, every news show I see her on, she's always thoughtful, well spoken and seems to be much more apolitical (aka moderate) that most of those shrill a$$ red state/blue state fools on Capitol Hill. For a politician she truly seems smart and genuine. I've got my eye on old girl - I think she's going places (and if she's not, she needs to be...).

Finally, I'll leave you with another dose of good news since there's *plenty* of jacked up news still to be had - my boy Fats Domino managed to make it out of New Orleans. When I told this to my boyz their reaction was - Fats Domino is *still* alive!? Yep - Fats is 77 and still kicking, y'all. He tried to ride out the storm in his crib but when the flood waters got up to the second floor he had to get rescued from the third floor by boat. At the moment his cousin - LSU starting QB JaMarcus Russell - is putting him up at his apartment. It's good to know that even if you can't count on your government to rush in and help you in your time of need, at least you have family, y'all.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone