Rico's Vice: Cheaper By The Dozen...

Wassup, Y'all!

It's only appropriate that I trot former ice cold undercover cop Rico (Suav-ay) Tubbs out of the closet before Jamie Foxx busts on the scene and makes everyone forget about the man who played the original Rico Tubbs in Miami Vice - Phillip Michael Thomas. PMT came to my attention recently when I caught some jibber jabber about him finally getting his life back together after working out some finacial shenanigans and fathering twelve kids. Hold up - *twelve* kids!?? Dang Rico! Even 2 Live Crew (y'all old schoolers tap that link and check out that 'Nasty As You Want to Be' cover art - what ever happened to those progressive brothers??) knew to 'wrap that rascal' *sometimes*, man! Just when I was ready to give Evander (and his ten kids) the prize, the spotlight catches Rico doing the grown up in every cabana in South Beach...

Okay - I might just be hatin' since PMT was *the* mack daddy back in the day. You know he was pulling major women during Miami Vice's hay day and he kicked some tight suits. He was Diddy and Jay-Z before Diddy was a Bad Boy and Jay-Z was Hova, jack. I loved that show too with cool a$$ Lt. Castillo and my girl Olivia Brown kicking the gat as Det. Trudy Joplin. You knew Miami Vice was a different type of show the minute it hit the air and it made South Beach the spot every homey wanted to get to because the scenery was off the hook - starting with Olivia. I haven't seen too much of old girl since then but she clearly left an impression on ol Tyrone if I'm still tripping on old girl twenty years later!

I'm happy to see that the casting director on the Miami Vice movie set didn't drop the ball and tapped UK shorty Naomi Harris to reprise the role. Y'all regular readers should remember a vintage post I dropped on Naomie after I checked her out in that Selma Hayek vehicle After The Sunset (for a reminder of Selma feel free to check out the reason I called After The Sunset a 'Selma Hayek'vehicle'...). Seems Naomie has been keeping herself busy these days. She's wrapped Vice and the second installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (Dead Man's Chest) and is currently filming the third (daaaang Disney! Talking about milking a cash cow - ease up, y'all!). Anyway, it's nice to see some fresh southside faces around even though you know Halle Berry's fingerprints have to be all over the scripts Naomie's reading...

Anyway - back on Vice for a minute. You know if PMT's Rico Tubbs had to hire a valet service to manage all the cars of the women he had falling through *his* crib, Jamie Foxx's Rico Tubbs probably set up a holding area inside Pro Player Stadium to handle his overflow. Here's a glossy of Jamie kicking it at Nikki Beach (located at the southern tip of South Beach) during filming. That joint's dubbed the 'Sexiest Place on Earth' (tho I'm sure Ipanema Beach in Rio will dispute that title...). It's a wonder there's any of South Beach left after Jamie and his crew pulled up stakes and headed to their next movie set (Dreamgirls, y'all). Those cats are living the life right about now. If y'all happen to peep an ad in the paper where Jamie is interviewing for new entourage members (cuz I know his regular rotation has *got* to be wearing down) - don't be tight - give a brother a shout out!

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Forget Grease - *L* is the Word

Wassup, Y'all!

Regular readers here at the Malone Zone will remember old Ty's early days when I had a regular penchant for posting glossys of smoking shortys. Between now and then, I've jibber-jabbered on a bunch of different topics but I'm happy to report that today marks a return to the golden days of vintage glossys so sit back and do some diligent reflection on exhibit A - Sarah Shahi who plays smoking westside club DJ, girl toy Carmen de la Pica Morales on the Showtime series The L Word. If she's not enough, read on to see why if you aren't checking that show out, you should stop and ax somebody y'all...

I have to admit that I first started watching The L Word for strictly shallow reasons - y'all know how I do. Truth be told, that joint is like your best boy's bachelor party - a legitimate reason to peep scantily clad women. With the bachelor party it's like "but baby - I'm just going cuz I'm Gin Fizz's boy and he'd be hurt if I didn't show...". For TLW it's just as close - it like "but baby, I'm just trying to get a deeper understanding of the lesbian culture so I won't be so judgemental...". See? Legimate peepin', y'all. And the thing about TLW is that most weeks the cast tends to be less scantily clad than most women on cable if you know what I'm sayin'. But after enjoying half of the first season (Season 3 is currently running now, y'all), ol Ty discovered that just like that warning that Bill Cosby dropped before each episode of the Cosby Kids cartoon on Saturday ("If you aren't careful you just might learn something"), suddenly I realized that there actually is a deeper understanding of the lesbian culture to get - who knew? I have to admit the show is really well done and if you tapped that link at the beginning to check 'Carmen's' background you'll see that the other actresses on the show aren't chopped liver either. But just when you get used to seeing Carmen jumping in and out of the shower with her girl, TLW will drop a *deep* dose of reality on a brother by intro'ing a character like Max/Moira - a confused shorty who's feels like a guy trapped in a woman's body. No, y'all - it's not all pretty on The L Word... It's about this time that I'll fast forward to other scenes with Carmen in them (refer to my previous 'shallow' comment above, y'all. There's no shame in my game...).

Now my boy DLT stepped out there and made the claim that Sarah Shahi has the best booty in televison. That's a bold statement given the wide expanse of cable TV booty available, not to mention the ghetto end of the dial known as UPN. So I'll drop the following glossy and let the readers chime in with their thoughts - pro or con. I'm an impartial 3rd party, y'all so my vote doesn't count so if you disagree, drop an alternate nominee - don't just hate. Me? I'm still morning the loss of Tisha Campbell from My Wife and Kids last season...

So if you have about 50 minutes to spare next Sunday night, continue your 'deep reflection' of Sarah by peepin an episode of TLW...hopefully you can TiVo that joint so you can fast forward through some of the deeper scenes...the water's fine at the shallow end of the pool, y'all.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

The Lost Boys...

Wassup, Y'all!

You know there are times when old Tyrone actually *doesn't* hear about things first (shocking as that may be, y'all) and that I actually have to depend on my world renowned network to bring you the information you need to know. In this case, y'all need to be thankful to Northside 'Betty Crocka Smack Talka' Shorty who happened upon the details of a necessary documentary while spinning her radio dial and accidently landing on NPR…

The documentary is called The Boys of Baraka and focuses on a program in Baltimore that annually selected 20 black male teens to attend the Baraka School - an alternative school located Kenyan bush country (now closed). The program's primary focus was to show the teens an alternative lifestyle completely opposite from the buck wild, drug fueled anarchy ruling B'more's inner city streets - an environment that boasts the shameful statistic of an 80% high school dropout rate among B'more's black boys. 50% of that crew ends up doing a bid in prison copping three hots and cot on the state's dime. Think about those numbers, y'all and tell me this isn't a story that needs to be told (or a program that needs to be continued...).

So while Spike Lee, Ice Cube, the Wayans brothers, the Hudlin brothers, Oprah (is there an end to this list?) are going mainstream , Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, two civic minded Northside shortys decided to do just that. Check out the trailer to get a feel for what to expect. Your next challenge will be to try and find this bad boy in any movie theater that's in your area (particularly since it got snubbed by the Oscars in the Best Documentary category - now to be fair March of the Penguins *was* an amazing piece of film making but Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room? Man, you can check that out live during the Ken Lay/Jeff Skilling trial on Court TV! Okay - that trailer looks pretty good too, but you get my point...). It did receive critical notice at the South by Southwest Film Festival but y'all can tell by that title it ain't Sundance.

Anyway, the blog Cinematical did a nice interview with Rachel Grady during which old girl dropped this among her many tight quotes:

"For Americans – for me – it was just so strange that children from the richest country in the world were going to the poorest country on earth to get an education. It was just extremely ironic."

Whoa - didn't hear that one in the State of the Union address! Oh well - there's always next year to address social ills like these. For those of you unfamiliar with how uninviting the *inner city* (not B'more's *Inner Harbor* - that joint is off the cheezy, y'all - particularly for you sea food freaks out there…) streets of B'more are, you can check them out from the safety of your couch by peeping old shows of that excellent HBO series 'The Corner'. That joint will show you what hard living is all about, jack and how the mean streets can even turn a fine shorty like Khandi Alexander (check her out in CSI: Miami now, y'all) into a Halle Berry, Jungle Fever crackhead. It ain't pretty, y'all. It ain't pretty.

So look for that joint at a theater nowhere close to you. I'll close with another timely quote from a reviewer on Rottentomatoes.com and it goes a little something like this:

"If American TV journalism were doing its job, reportage such as this would be regularly playing on major networks instead of limited runs at art house theaters."
-- Jurgen Fauth, ABOUT.COM

Amen, home skillet. Amen. I guess y'all will just have to stick with me to get your sideways dose of the actual factuals (and hope NS Shorty keeps channel hopping during her commute!). Good lookin' out, NS Shorty!

Peace@Least,

Tyrone