With Kinfolk Like Davon Boddie...

Wassup, Y'all!

Admit it fellas. Look through your relations and without a doubt you'll always find at least one Davon Boddie. The knucklehead, the Bad Luck Schleprock, the weakest link, the brother always moochin your Lime Chips or your Trident sugarless, or your new Oldspice Ahoy cologne or... For the uninitiated let me introduce you to Mike Vick's cousin Davon...

As family is known to do, Mike Vick did the loyal thing and put his cousin up in his Virginia crib - the one he was 'rarely' at, the one that somehow morphed into the center of a dog fighting enterprise. I say 'somehow' though I have to speculate that that knucklehead Davon at least had a finger in that stupid a$$ idea as well (tho surprisingly he's not up on any related charges). Anyway, Mike Vick puts his cousin Davon into plush digs. You know he wasn't asking for any rent or grocery money so Davon, who I have to speculate likely has nothing to fall back on except the kindness of his friends and family, is living large off his Golden Goose. For those of you who check out Entourage - Davon would be Turtle. The dude who runs odd jobs for his Golden Goose - Vinny Chase the A-list movie star - and spends his 'down time' gettin' high, playin' video games and knockin' boots with shortys willing to sleep with someone who knows someone famous. Shoot - life don't get much better than that, y'all.

So flash forward to April 20th when knucklehead Davon is cold chillin' on the block in Hampton, doin' his thing - talkin' smack to the honeys, promisin' them meetings with his boy and sparkin' up one of the fat doobies in his pocket when the Po-Po rolls up on him and tags him for drug possession. So far so good.

Now under questioning about where he lives, knucklehead Davon gives his real address - Mike Vick's crib in Surry County, VA. The crib that he knows has been running an illegal dogfighting enterprise, the crib that is housing beaucoup dogs in various states of jacked-up-ness, the house that sits on property that was used to bury dogs killed for not making the cut, the crib with enough dog fighting paraphernalia around to make Stevie Wonder suspicious. As they're sometimes known to do, the Po-Po follows up by paying a visit to the house to see if there any other drugs are up in Davon's room and lo and behold, what do they find? Enough dogfighting evidence to bring a federal indictment against his Golden Goose, Mike Vick.

I'm not sayin' Mike Vick didn't make his own bed if the allegation prove true - that's not my point. My point is that the loss of his reputation, endorsement deals (old boy had his mug on the cover of Madden 2004 for cryin' out loud - guess that jinx is still in full effect!), possibly his starting job as a quarterback in the NFL and most importantly his freedom to not have to share a cell with the Tossed Salad Man all hinged on a cousin who didn't have the good sense of a six year old on crack. Maa fact - comparing knucklehead Davon to six-year old crack addicts is givin' those biddy-boppers a bad name. See? Now y'all are getting the point that it pays to pick your friends wisely (same goes for family once you're old enough to make a choice...).

The good news for the dog fight fans who are bummed that Bad Newz Kennels won't be puttin' on any more main events is that there is a chance for them to see one last fight. That would be the one between Mike Vick and Knucklehead Davon when those two get back together. Man, I hope they put that bad boy on Pay-Per-View...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Duffosity in the Southside Nation

Wassup, Y'all!

It pains me to say that extreme duffosity is not limited to any demographic 'side'. I was going to conveniently let the story of the southside judge suing a Asian dry cleaner for $54 million for a pair of damn pants they misplaced go, especially when I found out that homeboy was a southsider. It was too embarrassing. The case got (rightly) decided in favor of the Asian dry cleaner and I thought that would be the end of it - that that Tom Foolery would sink into justified obscurity, but noooooo. Now it appears that I have to do the right thing now that this fool, Judge Roy Pearson, has asked the presiding judge to reconsider his verdict. That's him on the left in the glossy, y'all. I can only imagine that what's in the briefcase behind him is all his common sense, which he lost on the way to his courtroom...

There's a concept called 'Collective Guilt' that's always on a southsider's mind. It's basically "the idea that a group of humans can bear guilt above and beyond the guilt of particular members". Boiled down to Winky's Corner Store lingo you have a situation where a fool like Roy Pearson can cast disrepute on the entire southside nation. Y'all may not know this, but every time there's a heinous crime reported, like say someone shoving a pregnant woman into a woodchipper or the Manson murders, a collective sigh goes up throughout the Southside nation when it's revealed that the crime was perpetrated by a Northsider or an West or Eastsider (like that foul Virginia Tech ruckus). This is because we know we're already viewed as suspect #1 when anything jumps off and we don't want to give anyone yet another reason to make wild a$$ assumptions about what we're capable of.

Similarly, when a fool like Pearson pops up on national news, a collective cringe goes through the nation as we know the knee jerk reaction to seeing his mug pasted next to such Ridiculously Blatant Duffosity as suing for $54 million for a pair of damn pants will be something like this on the train the next morning - "Hey Bob, you hear about that black guy suing for $54 million for a pair of damn pants? Man, those people are always looking for an easy buck. First welfare now, this..." Jacked up, but true. Aint' no denying it. Sure there are some reasonable folks around that look at everything based on the individual but that's more the exception than the rule.

So just for the next week, I'm willing to call the Drop Squad off Clarence Thomas and put them on the case of this fool to get him off the air and 'rehabilitate' him properly. And I thought Paris Hilton was a fool. Just goes to show that no side is immune to Ridiculously Blatant Duffosity, but I have to admit, this one stings more than usual, y'all...

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Mike Vick - Bad Newz

Wassup, Y'all!

I agree. That glossy is foul and it's my humble opinion that Michael Vick's weak a$$ story that he knew nothing about the alleged dogfighting which occurred on his Surry County, Virgina property is equally foul. It could be true and Pop Rocks could be carbonated moon dust and Paris Hilton could still be a virgin. As a dog lover myself, I never got this whole dog fighting thing or, for that matter, the southside and westside infatuation with owning 'fighting dogs' like Pit Bulls, Rottweilers or Staffordshire Terriers.

My old girl's brother used to talk about feeding them gunpowder and hot sauce to make them tough and I used to look at that cat like he was crazy. Well crazy just about covers the nefarious ruckus going on down in the Surry where the Feds are putting together a disturbing body of evidence of a thriving dog fighting enterprise operating out of Vick's crib and I mean 'Hostel' type disturbing, y'all...

Apparently an operation called 'Bad Newz Kennels' has been operating dog fights out of that joint since 2002. For those of you not familiar with the fight game, let's just say that if you're a dog - particularly one with lackadaisical fighting ability - that's about the last place you want to be. Loser's aren't treated kindly, nor are dogs with 'low fighting potential'. Those bad boys invariably always end up dead, either by another dog or by their embarrassed owner who will dispose of the dog by means like "drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, [or] electrocution".

Big Boi from Outkast seems to be trying to do it right by running a legimate Pitbull breeding farm called Pitfall Kennels in Georgia. In fact, he and his brothers got all genetic and created a recognized breeding line which produced one of the first blue Pitbulls. Only in America, y'all. But it is proof positive that that we can get on the right side of this thing. For those other knuckleheads, Ol Ty offers a fool proof way to break them of their dog fighting ways. I propose dropping them in the ring along with their dog, slathered down in some Alpo. If they make it out with their a$$ intact, I'm pretty sure they'll change their ways. If they don't, well--problem solved. Mike Vick! Your table's ready, homey.

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

Taraji P. and Me

Wassup, Y'all!

Okay, well not me specifically. Actually, not me at all, but Ol Ty is happy to report that the highly under rated actress is coming to the small screen as a high powered lawyer in David Kelley's Boston Legal. Now y'all know I've been a Taraji fan for the longest. I have yet to see her play a bad role and she's been in more than a few - even that choice joint as a lesbian hit woman with fly Alicia Keys in 'Smoking Aces' - a combo we could do with seeing more of if you ask me. Now as word reached the basement of TPH's climb to well deserved new heights, similar news filtered in as well on the sad, sinking saga of former track great Marion Jones (who?)...

Man, it seemed like just yesterday that Ol Ty was watchin' Marion running the streets in that American Express commercial. Now it seems that ol girl can't run away from her debts fast enough. According to EURweb, MJ is so far in debt that she had to sell not only her crib, but her mama's crib too! That's cold. Now Ol Ty has given thought to that several times, especially when my mama gets tight with the basement AC or keeps jibber-jabbering about rent. She's lucky our crib is in her name or I'd Marion Jones' her too. Just kiddin', mama! It's a trip how a life can turn on a dime like that. Word has it that former NFL football sensation Ickey Woods had to sell meat door-to-door for a few. Granted it was those tasty a$$ Omaha Steaks instead of Steak-Umms but still...

Finally, let me wrap with another cautionary tale. It's based on an excellent fable by my boy Easy Aesop called The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Ol Ty is gettin' a little tired of my southside crew always fallin' back on the race card when things don't go their way. You feel me, Vivica? Wesley? Frenchie? Hold up - Frenchie!? Even C-listers are gettin' in on that tired act - though her deal sounds a little more like Mo'Nique's 'Big Girls on A Plane ' deal. Anyway - y'all need to quit that ruckus because all it does is detract from serious matters where such a charge can be accurately applied. Mute that noise, y'all - don't make me get all medieval up in this mug!

Peace@Least,

Tyrone

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