Lil Penny Hits Hard Times...

Wassup, Y'all!

Ooooo weeeeee the funk got hot on the Oprah Show today (or so I'm told since I don't watch the Oprah Show, y'all). My entertainment insider Gin Fizz dropped the actual factuals that Queen B(ook) Oprah called out old school L'il Penny Hardaway today and took him to task on her show for the many 'factual' inaccuracies pointed out in his autobiographical memoir Knee High and Livin' Large - The World According to Me...

Personally, I'm a little disappointed too as Oprah's Book Club recommendations carry a lot of weight (no pun intended on that one, y'all) and it's hard enough for a brother to catch some literary limelight without this kind of ruckus going on! As of this posting, L'il Penny remained secluded in his Brentwood home and is rumored to be negotiating with his girl Tyra Banks to appear on her show to set the record straight. Among the many 'facts' in dispute in LP's 1999 book are the points that 1) Anfernee Hardaway is still playing in the NBA, 2) that Anfernee was just as good a player with Shaquille O'Neal as without him and 3) that Anfernee's mama was a good speller in school. Apparently, a routine investigation conducted by the NBA's Office of Missing and Exploited Players concluded that Anfernee Hardaway has not been seen on a basketball court since the early 2000-2001 season.

L'il Penny contends the controversy is an elaborate smear campaign orchestrated by his arch rival, Sprite pitchman Miles Thirst and his boy LeBron James. Thirst and L'il Penny, previously fast friends and constant fixtures on the LA club scene allegedly fell out when LP heard that Thirst did the grown up with his girl Tyra Banks at her farewell Victoria's Secret Fashion Show last month - a charge Banks vigorously denies, hence her airtime offer to LP on one of her upcoming shows.

In the meantime, while LP's 15 minutes of fame drain away, Miles Thirst's popularity is blasting through the stratosphere thanks to his close association with the Spirte 'Obey Your Thirst' ad campaign and his club card membership in LeBron's 'King James' entourage. His popularity got an additional boost when rumors began swirling that Angelina Jolie's unborn baby is actually his and not Brad Pitt's,. Suki, suki! I know Jen has *got* to be enjoying that tasty morsel. Maaa fact - that little Ethiopian crumb snatcher on her hip looks a lot like MT too... Seems to me that Thirst has been showing a little more than just his motto around Hollywood these days, but y'all didn't hear that from me...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Back on the block disobeying the law...

Wassup, Y'all!

The rumors of my capping have been greatly exaggerated! Yeah y'all, the kid's back in effect, recharged from a holiday trip down to the islands visiting my deep and Africanic brothers and sisters down in the Caribbean. I would have been back on the air sooner but I got back to mama's basement to find old girl had disconnected my broadband connection. Even though the service is in her name, that was a trifling, rookie move, y'all. I know y'all missed me cuz I missed myself and I have to admit that it feels good to be tickling the keyboard keys again. I decided to ease y'all back into the groove with a little preview of a movie that I've been fiending on for the longest - Spike Lee's upcoming crime caper Inside Man...

Now I've been trying to hang with the Spike Lee Joints since Nola Darling and She's Gotta Have It. There was something about fast talking Mars Blackmon please baby, baby pleasing and Nola confidently expressing her inner freak that made me think - hmmmmm, maybe I need to tap into this Forty Acres and A Mule business. Then Spike introduced us to Latin mami Rosie Perez and I knew he was my kind of director jack. But I yearned for him to up the ante and start cranking out some bigger pics - something with scope and depth like his mentor Martin Scorsese and he almost hit that note once when he dropped Malcom X ("We didn't land on Plymouth Rock! Plymouth Rock landed on us!) . I appreciated that effort and his go to guy Denzel Washington was hitting and holding in that role, but alas, my boy Spike zigged instead of zagged and dropped Crooklyn, Girl 6, yada, yada, yada. Finally the boy completely lost his mind and dropped She Hate Me on an unsuspecting movie watching public and I thought we'd lost old Spike forever.

Then out of the blue I start hearing rumors of another Spike Lee Joint in the works with names attached to it like Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jodie Foster, Willem Dafoe, Christopher Plummer and, of course, Daddy Denzel. Now all the sudden I'm like hmmmm, there must be a new director in Hollywood cribbing Spike's name cuz I know he couldn't pull that kind of star power. But as luck would have it, this is the next Spike Lee Joint due to hit theaters on March 17. The buzz is good, the trailer is good, and the cast is stellar so I'm figuring not even Spike can mess this one up. I'm waiting for old boy to finally get his due as a bankable director before Ice Cube beats him to the Oscar stage with Barbershop 5. Hey, a brother can dream can't he?

Peace@Least,

Tyrone