Eddie + DNA = Tall Cheddar

Wassup, Y'all!

Dang! What a difference a week makes! Last week our boy Donkey was clinging to the slim hope that our girl Scary Spice was steppin' out on him during the time that they were knockin' boots. Scary maintained from the beginning that Eddie was her baby's daddy but Eddie said 'no, we have to wait to see if that baby is mine' - a jacked up statement that followed a jacked up public jilting of Scary. Well, the waiting is over and Donkey is now the proud papa of a six pack of kids (five by his ex-wife and one by Scary). Man - if that back alley prostitute hadn't turned out to be a transvestite back in the day we'd probably be talking at least seven crumb snatchers and that's getting into Shawn Kemp territory...

I'm here in the basement watching live coverage of shortys high fivin' all over town. I'm sure all are waiting with baited breath for a ruling on what the support payments will be. I'm thinkin' no more than 25 large a month if Eddie does the wise thing and hooks up with 50 Cent's lawyer cuz Fiddy is takin' his baby's mama Shaniqua (yes, that's right - Shaniqua) for a ride. Yes, yes, y'all - the top is so much better than the bottom - so much better...tho Eddie would have been wise to avoid both positions with Scary.

Homeboys, here's yet another cautionary tale of the benefits of safe sex. Not only can it save your life, it can also keep a stack of paper in your pocket, egg off your face and a whole bunch of crow out of your mouth. Hopefully when Scary makes it to Chi-town on that leg of the Spice Girls Reunion Tour, she'll break a bit off for ol Ty - given my support of her position - and help a brother finally get up on outta the basement.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

20 years later it's STILL HALF, Eddie

Wassup, Y'all!

It's been 20 years since Eddie Murphy dropped his seminal RAW album based on the live concert. There were some funny a$$ bits in that joint but none more so than Eddie's take on potentially having to part with half his money should he get married and subsequently divorced without a prenup in place. To prevent such a unhappy circumstance, he reasoned that the best thing to do would be to go to Africa and marry an African 'bush woman' who had no notion of American shorty's sense of marital entitlement. Fast forward 20 years and somehow, Eddie decides to knock unprotected boots with a chick nicknamed 'Scary Spice' and now a substantial chunk of his cheddar is balanced on the results of a paternity test. Hmmm...doesn't sound like progress to me...

Ol Ty has to admit he didn't exactly see what Eddie was looking at when he decided to tap that...unless he was checking out this CD cover... Once Melanie Brown aka Mel B. aka Scary Spice got pregant, the only one of her aliases that really applied was Scary Spice or maybe Really Scary Spice cuz ol girl blew up, jack! Her hair was alway a hot mess and her outfits were less than flattering (sez the brother in his mama's basement who's never been pregnant, but I digress...). Seems Eddie caught on to that as well since he dropped Scary like a fat rat and started stepping out with Baby Face's old girl Tracey Edmunds (apparently without telling Melly Mel that she had been sent to the end of the bench - dang! Brothers are still doing that ruckus!?).

Mel then broadly proclaims she's pregnant with Eddie's baby, Eddie broadly proclaims it may not be his and he'll need a paternity test, the test was broadly proclaimed to have been recently taken and now the world waits as Eddie's cheddar hangs by a thin strand of DNA. Shoulda gone the 'bush babe' route, Eddie. Tho in the end, ol girl demanded half as well...dang - can't win for losing, homey.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Smooth Barack's New Groupie Demographic

Wassup, Y'all!

Man, first it was the rockers, then the athletes, then the dot.com billionaires and now, thanks to Smooth Barack, Presidential candidates have their own groupies too. That's right y'all - Smooth Barack's Number One Fan Obama Girl has dropped a single on YouTube that headin' for number one with a bullet. Don't let this photoshopped glossy fool you into thinking that Smooth was a willing participant in this slick production - he wasn't, but I gots to give it up to the crew behind this video. It's creative, the tune is catchy, the visuals are lush and, if this is any indication of things to come, it's gonna to be an off-the-hook political season as the 2008 campaign heats up...

According to abcnews.com:

"The song was performed by Leah Kauffman, a 21-year-old undergraduate at Temple University in Philadelphia, who wrote the lyrics with a friend, 32-year-old advertising executive Ben Relles, and the music with her producer, Rick Friedrich.

An actress/model named Amber Lee Ettinger [homegirl in the glossy, who, on her website, cites none other than our boy Denzel as her favorite actor. Dang Will! You snooze, you lose, homey.] then lip-synched the song for the video, shot by filmmakers found on Craigslist two hours before Relles and Ettinger hit New York City one Friday in May to shoot the video on a DV camera."

Various new sites and blogs have described Ms. Ettinger as nubile, comely, & hot. Having peeped the video for research purposes, ol Ty will have to go with Daaaaaaaamn! instead. That's right, y'all - a solid 8 on the Shorty Damn Meter.

Given that, a brother has to wonder what 'Chelle is thinking about all this ruckus (since the Smooth camp seems to be might quiet at the moment). Now we all know that Southside sisters don't play this mess and 'Chelle is a shorty who looks like she plays even less. You can almost picture her in this glossy saying 'If I see that black haired Buffy in the street tonight, I'm a put my foot so far up her...". Smooth on the other hand must be trying to figure out a way to slip his Secret Service detail for a couple hours. Man - I'm just playin', lighten up y'all! We all know Smooth's a family man.

Anyway - Yo! Where are all the blog groupies at?? Y'all need to show a brother some of that Smooth Barack love and start blowin' up the basement hot line talkin' 'bout, 'Yo T., it's me' :-)

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Et tu, Isaiah?

Wassup, Y'all!

Man, you knew it was coming but now that it's here, it's still a little shocking. Word has reached the basement that our boy Isaiah Washington (I-Dub to you and me) has been kicked to the curb and will no longer appear on the hit show Grey's Anatomy as heart surgeon Preston Burke. This word comes from ABC who took the route of 'not renewing his option' vs. outright firing, but you know that with the clout that series creator Shonda Rhimes has with the network, ol girl had to have signed off on I-Dub's walking papers as well. You have to think there would be a little conflict in the southside household over that but we can't rightly jump on Kramer and Imus without expecting our kin folk to get held to the same standard...

Shorty Shonda (seen here with I-Dub peepin' over her shoulder) really didn't have a choice - though during initial interviews on the matter, she diplomatically said that they would resolve the issue 'in house'. Over the intervening weeks, it seemed as if I-Dub's naive a$$ actually believed that going to counseling and reaching out to gay and lesbian groups would actually help his outcome. Similarly, ABC and Shonda seemed to have let that notion fly until after the series wrapped for the season before putting a foot on I-Dub's a$$ and pushing him out the studio door.

Man - and I thought that ruckus on the Sopranos was foul. They should have at least whacked I-Dub from jump street (and written a tight story line that had him getting killed trying to foil a bank robbery or something instead of slinking off after leaving his bride-to-be in the church foyer and later hyperventilating in their crib when she found out he had moved his gear out) instead of giving a brother hope and then smacking him down.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Anika & The Frog

Wassup, Y'all!

A couple months back Ol Ty dropped some knowledge about the upcoming Disney animated feature 'The Frog Princess', which was scheduled to feature their first southside princess. At that time names like Alicia Keys and Jennifer Hudson were vying to become the little animated shorty's voice but surprisingly Hudson's lesser known 'Dream' Anika Noni Rose managed to beat those buffys back and land the role her damn self. Two snaps up for Anika and a half hearted snap to Disney for finally bowing to the pressure - no doubt started here in the Malone Zone - to rework that JACKED UP title...

In the wake of beaucoup complaints about 'racial and ethnic insensitivities' related to 1) the title, 2) the main character's name (Maddy which sounded similar to the common slave name 'Mammy'), and 3) her vocation as a chambermaid working for a rich, spoiled northside debutante, Disney said 'Well we never said we had any southsiders actually contribute to the script but if all you're going to do is complain I guess we can change a couple things'. So now we have 'The Princess and The Frog' starring Tiana. Hmmmm, now if we could just get Disney to rename that 'Pirates of the Caribbean' ride to 'Boyz 'N The Hood' we'd finally be getting somewhere.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Ephinany Coming to Hip-Hop?

Wassup, Y'all!

Since the Imus dust up, there's been building pressure on the Hip-Hop community to likewise clean up their acts with respect to the N-word, the B-word, the H-word, the MF-word, blah, blah, blah. It's not the first time such pressure has been exerted by member of the southside community, but now that Russell Simmons has weighed in on the side of buffin' hip-hop's image with a brillo pad and some Mister Clean, strangely there FINALLY seems to be some movement to where I've been tryin' to get that crew to move for the longest...

Recently there have been a couple positive developments on this front. The first came from rapper Chamillionaire whose summer album, Ultimate Victory, has been announced to be curse, n-word and misogyny free.

Following closely on the heels of this announcement as a similar but larger reaching one by rap impresario Master P, who announced that he's creating a new rap record label that will focus on '100% clean lyrics'. I'm liking the sound of that and it's been long in comin'. It would be nice to think that this ephinany came from a desire to do the right thing but I'm more so thinking this shift as has more to do with green than common good. Sales for rap music have been on the decline - down 21% from 2005 to 2006 and no rap/hip-hop albums graced the Top 10 last year - and with Jesse and Al doin' all that yappin' about Imus, there's no way they can get away with not putting the focus on rap lyrics as well.

So given that, a brother would think that most rappers would consider gettin' on the bandwagon. Most rappers...then there's our boy Curtis Jackson. When asked by EURweb.com's Lee Bailey about his thoughts on the Imus backlash, Fiddy was quoted as saying, 'Man, fu#k that bull$hit, if I want to call a bit$h a ho, I'll tell her straight up and her bit$h ass ni%%er too! Or something like that. *Sigh*... well, nobody said that Rome was built in a day, but ol Ty is likin' the direction things are headin'.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Smooth Barack, Secret Service & Magic Negros

Wassup, Y'all!

The wires have been buzzin' lately about a request from Smooth Barack's campaign for Secret Service protection. Naturally various factions are weighin' in with just why they feel that that level of protection is needed, especially this early in the campaign season. Well, despite the ill thought out contention by many in the southside nation that Smooth Barack just isn't 'black enough', ol Ty seems to think that this type of request proves just the opposite and likely a little bit more courtesy of Rush Limbaugh...

Now we all know that race relations in the US have progressed to the point where there's a paper thin veneer of good will covering nearly four hundred years of ill will that routinely bubbles to the surface like pressurized lava. No need to delve into that madness as a reason for Smooth's protection request. Instead let's talk about the political hatred stirred up by the Grand Pooba of conservative commentators, Rush Limbaugh. Spend any amount of time suffering through his radio talk show and you'll quickly discover two things - 1) Limbaugh runs fast and easy with things like facts and accuracy and 2) his audience is huge, fanatically loyal and eager to eat up every morsel of separatist rhetoric that Limbaugh spoons out. He's a modern day snake oil salesman and his sales are very, very good. In my opinion, the effect of his political rabble rousing is no different than the racial rabble rousing put out by folks like David Duke or the Klan - it encourages unstable followers to commit unstable acts.

Lately, Limbaugh's been getting a lot of mileage out of cribbing Los Angeles Times columnist David Ehrenstein (a southsider - see the glossy on the left) reference to Smooth Barack as The Magic Negro. Homey Clarence Page does a good job of summing up that ruckus, while the national media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) does a good job of exposing Limbaugh's sloppy track record with the truth in their classic Limbaugh's Reign of Error report. Limbaugh's rebuttal to that report is pretty funny too until you realize the vast majority of his listeners seem to be soaking up that stuff without challenge or debate. His audience seems to revel in stocking up any ammunition they can get, real or imagined, to justify their extreme position on the far, faaaaar, right (even moderate Republicans don't get a pass from this crew). It doesn't take a 24 writer to come up with a scenario that would have someone from that crew trying to 'get with' Smooth Barack if it looked like he was going to win the Democratic nomination or, more dangerously for them, the White House. Now I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

That said, Limbaugh followers would do well to use a little thoughtful deliberation when listening to his show. A few of you biddy-bop readers may not remember another back-in-the-day snake oil salesman named Jim Jones. The major ruckus at his Jonestown compound gave rise to the popular phrase 'Drinkin' Kool-Aid', which is used to describe someone who ignores known facts while arguing his position ('Dude - how can you think the Clippers are going to win the NBA title? Stop drinkin' that kool-aid, homey'). Jones' followers had similar blind loyalty to the man and his message and, if I'm not mistaken, things didn't turn out too well for that crew...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Michael Jackson - The Transformation

Wassup, Y'all!

I should be out from under it shortly, y'all. Hang tight. In the meantime, I've been wasting a lot of time perusing the blogosphere looking for timely issues. Somehow I hit on that funky ruckus between Eddie Murphy and Mel 'Scary Spice' B. (who is truly scary these days). Mel's so hot to get Eddie's DNA to prove he's the father of her baby that the rumor is she plans to cause a ruckus on the red carpet during the Shrek 3 premier. That would be some tacky, bogosity that could look a little something like this...

I'm sure all this has y'all askin' - 'Ty, what the hell does all this have to do with Michael Jackson'? You know how the web is - Eddie Murphy leads to the Michael Jackson video 'Remember The Time', the 'Remember The Time' video leads you to the Michael and Janet 'Scream' video and suddenly I'm posting about how damn much Michael Jackson's appearance has changed from then to now. Remember this Michael? Okay, I'll admit that somewhere between 'little' Michal Jackson and 'Big' Michael Jackson cute got left behind, but was it that bad?

When the morphing started, it wasn't actually pretty good. This shot is kinda close to that 'Thriller' look he had going on. An admitted improvement over Big Michael and it would have been a good place to call it a day. But we all know how it is when you think just one more little tweak will make a good thing great. In MJ's case, it was the top of a slippery slope that ol boy still seems to be sliding down. Clearly this Mike was still a little too brown, so he eased into what I'll kindly call 'the bleaching years'.

Here, ol boy is lighter, yet still not too bad. Yes, he's a little strange looking but not quite ready for a vacant slot in the Ripley's Believe it or Not tent. I had actually started getting used to this look and was ready to give ol boy the benefit of the doubt and say - okay, you're a little eccentric but you've still got talent pumping out of every pore.

Ol Ty was actually hopeful that this was the last stop for the transformation train, but it was not to be. Instead the train kept right on going, ran over Michael more than a few times and when it finally cleared the tracks, it left ol boy looking like this. As my boy Martin used to say: 'Awwww damn, damn, DAMN'! There's really no rational explanation for a look like this and I did ol boy a favor by not dropping that scary ass looking mug shot that got snapped leading up to his trial.

Which brings me sadly back to the 'Scream' video. Man, watching his videos shows you just how creative this brother is. He and Janet put together some tight azz dance concept videos back in the day and Scream is still a pleasure since they're both in it doing their thing. Compare their old stuff to the videos in rotation these days. No imagination, no innovation, scant creativity. It's all about excess, bling, hoochies, cars, G4s, yachts, blowing money makin' it rain, blah, blah, blah. Say what you want about Michael's azz, at least the brother wasn't unoriginal. Weird? Check. Insanely eccentric? Check. Sexually inoppropriate? Can't say. But that's one original brother. Check those videos out and tell me I'm lying.

In the meantime, I'm going back to work and tell Boss man Mr. Cholly to 'Stop Pressurin' Me' because it makes me wanna scream :-)

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Tyrone At The Movies...

Wassup, Y'all!

I finally made it out to the back row of a movie theater so I thought I'd report back on that one (Fracture) and another jacked up joint I caught on video a little while ago (The Wicker Man). Fracture had a tight little plot that revolved around a husband (Anthony Hopkins) who caps his wife when he finds out she's been having an affair, while The Wicker Man is a remake of a 1973 joint with what ol Ty would have to consider one of the top three jacked up endings of any movie he's *ever* seen....

Although I mentioned Anthony Hopkins in Fracture, I'm also diggin' the young cat Ryan Gosling these days. He first hit my radar from his role in Murder By Numbers with Sandra Bullock. I pretty much ignored homey when he popped up in that sappy Notebook movie then he came hard again in a small movie - Half Nelson - that garnered ol boy an Academy Award Best Actor nomination. He's a good actor and apparently is keepin' it real by eschewing the bling Hollywood lifestyle by kickin' it low town by living in Hollywood's Skid Row district. Can't hate on that, y'all.

Anyway, Gosling plays an Assistant District Attorney who draws what he believes is an open and shut case: Hopkins' confession to the murder of his wife. As always with Anthony Hopkins' azz, things aren't what they seem and...well - go check out the flick. You'll like it - I'm giving that joint Three Spinners.

Now, on the other hand, I can't even remotely recommend The Wicker Man, unless you're into confusing movies starring Nicholas Cage that have JACKED UP endings. I plugged this joint into the hoopty's DVD/8-Track player to pass the time and knew things weren't going to work out well when I found out that Cage was heading to a 'remote island only accessible by seaplane'. Even Stevie Wonder could see it coming...almost. I knew things would be bad, but the director outdid even my imagination on this one, y'all.

I'll let IMDB do the summary honors:

While recovering from a tragic accident on the road, the patrolman Edward Malus receives a letter from his former fiancée Willow, who left him years ago without any explanation, telling that her daughter Rowan is missing. Edward travels to the private island of Summerisle, where Willow lives in an odd community that plant fruits, and she reveals that Rowan is actually their daughter. Along his investigation with the hostile and unhelpful dwellers, Edward discloses that the locals are pagans, practicing old rituals to improve their harvest, and Rowan is probably alive and being prepared to be sacrificed. When he locates the girl, he finds also the dark truth about the wicker man.

'Dark Truth'...that's what's known in the business as an 'understatement', y'all! If you decide to check it out, don't say ol Ty didn't try to warn you away from this one. Homeboys in particular will find this movie...disturbing. As far as Spinners - I can't go further than 1.5 and 1.4 of that is due to the 'dark truth about the wicker man'.

If you can find this joint in the discount rack at Blockbuster, you might want to give it go...and then not sleep right for a couple weeks...ol Ty *still* gets the shivers from that joint from time to time...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Larry Fish The Next James Earl Jones?

Wassup, Y'all!

It would be an understatement to say that the man has ol Ty down since he's been wearing my azz OUT the last few weeks. Despite that, I've finally found a little time to do what I do especially since I heard that my boy Laurence Fishburne has been tabbed to provide the voice of the cold azz Silver Surfer in the Fastastic Four sequel: F4: Rise of The Silver Surfer due to bow on June 15th. Voice work is a cushy gig if you can get it - you can do it from home, in your draws and stack a lot of cheddar. Regardless of that, I can't think of a better brother to be the voice of anything since Larry Fish has got to be the most enunciating brother on the planet (that's right y'all - he's even got Sidney Poitier). I like to call him Mr. 'Anti Ebonics'...

Now we all know the previous gold standard for voice work was our boy James Earl Jones. His rendering of Darth Vader pretty much cemented his spot ('Luke, I'm your fa-ther'). Given, the Fantastic Four series isn't on the level of Star Wars, but a tight showing with this Silver Surfer gig will invariably lead to others. Eddie Murphy is cashing some nice checks with his Donkey act in the Shrek movies (and he'll be back in the saddle in Shrek The Third on May 18th)
and with a L. Fish baby on the way with foine shorty Gina Torres I'm sure the extra cheddar will come in handy.

Man, doing voice work...at home...in his draws...with Gina Torres in the next room - that's pretty much what ol Ty calls the perfect storm . Like this brother needs more good luck after scoring big as smooth azz Morpheus in the Matrix trilogy. I have to give it up for ol boy though - he put his work in so the least he can do is collect his propers. I'll be looking foward to the movie to see how he pulls it off.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone