Damn You Kobe!

Note: I had planned to post this on Monday but my son was sick and my job actually wanted to earn my salary this week so I didn’t have time to finish. Apparently they’re not paying me to make blog posts. Who knew?

Watching the last seconds tick away of Cavs vs. Lakers yesterday, I thought the same thing I’ve thought for the past 13 or so years: Damn you Kobe! I thought this would be another chance for him to get embarrassed on national TV, I thought Lebron would show him who’s boss and punish him. Didn’t happen. Kobe and the Lakers won and made it look rather easy. A lot of it had to do with Lamar Odom’s 28 and 17 rebounds but Kobe hit some tough shots right in Lebron’s grill when he needed to. Damn him!

I played basketball in high school and a little in junior college, so got to travel and see some of the really good players around my age group. Players like Stephon Marbury, K.G., Allen Iverson and a couple of other NBA players. These types of players let me know really quickly that basketball would end for me after junior college.( I also found out that I was only 5’11 and not 6’1) Anyway, I remember hearing about this kid in the Philadelphia area who was supposed to be like a mini Jordan. I watched him a couple of times on TV and thought that he had serious talent. Then came the infamous news conference when he announced that he was bypassing college and going straight to the NBA. I don’t know if it was his sunglasses on his peanut head, the suit that looked 5 sizes too big or the way he was mumbling his words but something really irked me about this kid. The feeling only grew stronger during his first season in the NBA, he came across as a whining baby who seldom passed the ball. I remember laughing deliriously when he shot 3 air balls in a row in that playoff series against the Utah Jazz. Ha ha ha. But then he grew out that boondocks’ afro and started to dominate. Even went to work against a fading Jordan a couple of times (Jordan did abuse him in one All-Star game though). Once Shaq came and the Lakers started winning titles again, I had to see his face basically everyday. And for a person who supposedly didn’t want to be compared to Jordan, he sure was starting to sound like Jordan. He started copying his pigeon toed walk, the way he chewed gum and even the Jordan’s fist pump when he would make a clutch shot at the end of games. He basically did everything but move to Chicago and start cheating on Juanita…… I met my wife in 2001 and I remember going to her dorm room and hanging out for the first time. I was sitting down and I could feel eyes staring at me from her dorm wall. I look up and it’s a computer print out Kobe Bean Bryant. I started an argument with her and stormed out of her room. That night I had to decide whether I could see myself with a woman who liked Kobe. Thankfully I snapped out of it and thankfully she didn’t look at me like an immature loser. (she did) Only Shaq was happier than me to see Kobe get in to trouble with his “rape” case in 2003. I never actually thought he raped that girl but I was glad to see some of that luster was coming off his squeaking clean image when it was clear that he wasn’t that clean. I was glad he didn’t go to jail for something he didn’t do but that didn’t stop me from laughing at him fake crying at his press conference. It took him a little while but he’s regained much of his reputation back, especially on the court.

With Lebron averaging close to a triple double while leading his team to 23 straight homes wins, I thought this could be the year that Lebron passes him as the best player in the NBA. Watching Sunday I first see Kobe on the bench before the game looking like someone just farted in his face, then we’re told that Kobe is “sick” and he threw up before the game. Great, just when I thought he didn’t have anything else to copy Jordan about now he wants to copy his famous “flu game”. He didn’t have the great stats that Jordan had in his flu game but he did play well and at times he looked well. Why Lebron didn’t post Kobe up when he outweighs him by 40 pounds, I’ll never know. Instead he was launching jumpers most of the night and had a horrible shooting game.

Will I continue to hate Kobe, I don’t know. I hated Jordan for torturing my Knicks all of those years but I was actually rooting for him the year when his father was murdered and they won the championship. So there’s still hope for Kobe. I’m not saying I want someone to murder his father, I just want him to be a little less corny.

Please Thank and Excuse

After 10 plus years of tracking me down, my state’s court system finally got me to fulfill my civic duty and perform jury duty. I’ve had co-workers and friends share their horror stories about being trapped in room all day with no food or water, ready to snap. I’ve also had a friend tell me how easy it is to meet women there because they’re lonely and bored. I didn’t know whether he was talking about jury duty or a funeral. I have another friend who met a woman there and spent enough time with her that we started calling her “jury duty”. Exaggerations from various people aside, I wasn’t too geeked up about the possibility of being bored to death.

They said to get there by 7:30. Being the anti-CP Time brother that I am I arrived at 7:15, only to find out that I could have arrived at 8:30 and no one would have cared. You owe me an extra hour of sleep State of Maryland! I was given a juror number and told that from now on that number would be my identification. The courthouse workers announced these names and numbers with the enthusiasm of a motor vehicle teller. This didn’t seem like time to ask if I could just go by Allweez. At 9:00 we were rounded up by number and order to march into the courtroom one by one. Once in the courtroom we were seated in order by number and told the nature of the case. Attempted Murder and Sexual Assault was the charge! Uh, I didn’t sign up for this is what I was thinking until I remembered that no one signed up for this, we just simply exercised our right to vote.

Next we were introduced to two opposing attorneys and the defendant himself. One of my favorite words in the dictionary is “crazy” and this n*gga, excuse me this brother looked CRAZY! He made Crazy Inside Out Camouflage man from the Super Bowl post look like Bryant Gumbel. The judge asked if anyone one had a reason why they wouldn’t be able to adhere to the rules of the court and about 10 people stood up to say that they followed the rules of Jehovah. (That damn Jay-Z almost had me write Jay-Hova) I have nothing against Jehovah Witnesses but after the 5th person started saying the laws of Jehovah, I was praying for a simple “ditto”. The judge then asked if anyone had been a victim or had family that had been a victim of a violent crime. Of course 90% of the court room stood up, including me. Since this is a sensitive topic for most people, the judge had people walk up to the bench and tell him, the two attorneys and the crazy looking defendant about their’s or their family member’s violent crime experience. I quickly realized that people were going to use this opportunity to get their 10 seconds of shine on. A couple of the female jurors treated the distance from their seat to the judge as their own personal model runway. The fellas did that slow stroll to the front basically to make sure they don’t trip in front of 75 people. I hit them with the same bop that I perfected in the 7th grade to get girls even though I only weighed 75 lbs and had huge glasses. All of the cool left my body though when I could feel the crazy defendant staring at me with his Samuel Jackson “Lakeview Terrace” eyes. I told the judge that a family member had been the victim of a sexual assault but that wouldn’t influence my ability to be apart of a fair trial. Both the prosecutor and the defense scribbled down notes and I was shown back to my seat. After they got rid of about 30 jurors, it was time to pick the actual 12. Since my juror number was in the 50’s, the 12 jurors were picked before my number was called. But then they started dropping jurors and adding new ones. By this time it was around 1:00 and I was starving and ready to go home and look at the spreads for the NBA games (I have gambling “habit”). Needless to say I was ready to get the hell out of there. When it came time for my number to be called, the prosecutor looked at me and said “please seat” your honor. The defense attorney looked at me and quickly said “please thank and excuse your honor”. WHAT? Who are you telling to thank and excuse!....Then I thought “Oh wait that means I get to go home”. I almost got blinded by the uneasy feeling of rejection. So George Jeffersoned my way out of there! All in all, it wasn’t as bad as advertised. I almost feel bad for earning a full day’s salary for it …….Almost.

Free Beer

I complained last week about going out to watch the Super Bowl, specifically sports bars. So what do I do? Since I’m a glutton for punishment, I go to a sports bar of course. I knew it would be weird night, when my friend Ryan (who’s one of my more militant friends) says he’s rooting for the Cardinals because his boss likes the Steelers. I say “yeah but the Steelers coach is black and he’d be only the 2nd black coach to win the Super Bowl”. He says “So what, I don’t want to hear my boss’s mouth at work”. Mind you, this is the same guy who would have loud arguments with his girlfriend about black history at 2 in the morning when we were roommates. There were plenty of Steelers fans at the bar and many of them had buzz cuts or faux mullets. It’s safe to say they weren’t rooting for the Steelers because of its black coach. I started to feel a little uncomfortable being one of only a few black faces there until about 5 minutes before the game started and that’s when the negroes started to pour in. I've never been more happy that people were on CP time in my life! Some of the brothers strolling in looked a little shady though, especially one dude wearing an inside out camouflage outfit and these brown Timberland’s that looked two sizes too big. And his braids were all over the place. Ryan turns and says “That dude looks crazy as sh*t”. At this point the dry hot wings that I ordered have arrived at the same time as Jennifer Hudson sings the national anthem. The waitress starts telling me how a girl that usually comes to the bar told her she’d be out of town this week because her sister is singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Our conversation went like this:

Waitress: I guess she’s talking about her.

Me: She said Jennifer Hudson is her sister?

Waitress: Yeah I guess.

Me: She’s from Chicago and her family was murder a couple of months ago….

Waitress: Noooooooo really? So I guess that girl was lying huh?

Me: Ummm yeah, there’s a pretty good chance she was…....

If the waitress hadn’t forgot napkins for my wings. I wouldn’t have believed that she didn’t know who Jennifer Hudson was. Because really, who forgets to bring napkins when a person is eating hot wings? I thought the first half of the game was semi entertaining and it looked like the Cardinals were going to take the lead until the Steelers returned an interception all the way back for a touchdown to end the half. That was the Kurt Warner I knew and hated when he was the quarterback for the Giants. He always found a way to cost us the game with a fumble or interception with his big stupid gloves that he wears on both hands. At this point I had a nice buzz going from my multiple Coronas so I didn’t mind Bruce Springsteen’s screaming too much. Plus he has a new found cool since performing for Obama at the inauguration. The rest of halftime was filled by me and Ryan discussing the highs and LOWS of married life. Fun times.

After a pretty boring 3rd quarter with only 3 points the whole quarter, the game heated back up in the 4th after the Cardinals stopped the Steelers on the goal line and then drove all the way down the field for a touchdown. Then Ryan decides he wants to act goofy and makes the fatal mistake of jumping up from the table and screaming yeaaahhhhh! Crazy Inside Out Camouflage man see’s him and says “Yeah son, that’s what I’m talking about. Who yall for, Who yall for?” He then proceeds to philosophize in a “I just got out of prison way” about the NFL and how they don’t like signing black players even though the league is 90% black. Meanwhile Ryan is on one side of me laughing and texting on his phone while I’m sitting right next to this guy listening to him talk nonsense for 15 straight minutes without me saying a word. Finally I notice a woman in a skimpy outfit walking around with Heinekens bottles on a tray and say “Yo they’re giving out free beer!” Crazy Inside Out Camouflage guy sprints after her and almost tackles her, which gave me time to switch my chair around so that there was another chair between me and crazy guy. By this time the Steelers were driving down the field for what would be there game winning score and place was going crazy. After downing a fee Heinekens myself and watching the last seconds tick off the game clock, we were ready to bounce. Leaving the bar we walked past C.I.O.C. guy while he was talking to a man who looked borderline homeless saying “Man they got free beer and hotdogs?”. We then made a mad dash for the parking lot.