Things I enjoy

"Things I enjoy" may or may not become a series on WPM. If it does become a series, expect each post to be about a rap lyric. However for it to become a series I would have to update this blog regularly, and we all know that probably won't happen.

This is something I enjoy:

The opening to Cam'ron's "We Make Change" off his album Killa Season.

Cam begins the track singing "People lie/ I don't know why/ and then they die/ and mothers cry/ and I can't find my alibi/ it's so so fly/ it's Dipset! Dipset!"

I enjoy that part, yes, but not nearly as much as the conversatoin between Cam and Lil' Ja that follows.

Cam'ron: What up Ja?

Lil Ja: Whattup

Cam: What's the deal?

Ja: Nuttin. Cam you can't be feedin' n*ggas

An iquisitive Cam: Why not?

Ja: 'Cause they don't appreciate shit... Guess they gonna learn when the get in the car (Cam'ron adlibs a "Killa!") start it up and boom (the "boom" echoes out until Cam starts rapping)

I enjoy this for the following reasons:

Outside of having Phillip Garrido for a father, I can't imagine weirder childhood than being raised in the Dipset family.

Lil Ja cannot be much older than six and he is featured on Cam's Killa Season discussing murder. The fact that Cam felt the need to adlib on top of the conversation and then add an echo effect a six year old talking about plotting a murder is... well it's a lot to take in.

I could over analyze this for days, but the jokes would only get progressively less funny than they already are.

After some quick Googling I learned Lil Ja is short for Ja'Quaye, who is Juelz Santana's little nephew. He's also featured in Juelz's "There it go" video. If you want to lose all hope for society and at the same time feel extremely creepy for looking at a six year old's MySpace, go to myspace.com/datniggaliljah.

A knowledgeable Haitian

Two weeks ago I was playing tour guide to my friend who was visiting New York City. It was his first time in the city and whenever I am showing somebody the city I like to stretch the truth a little bit.

When we walked to ground zero I told him that he just missed out. "If you would have came here last week, you could have seen the Twin Towers, but they just took them down for an episode of 'Entourage.' It was something about their shadow messing up a shot of Vince."

Then we sat on some steps of a building just east of the WTC site for some heavy thinking. And so my friend could call a stripper he is kinda in love with. I personally do not like strippers, although I am sure some are good people, but my friend loves strippers. Not in the silly, ironic way I love Cameron Giles, but he genuinely loves strippers. To each their own.

Then as I sat on the steps pondering how I could tie Turtle into my poor Twin Towers joke and still be respectful of the thousands who lost their lives, my train of thought was broken by a security guard.

"Hey is that a River Plate jersey?" he asked in reference to the Boca Juniors jersey I wore.

"No, it's a Boca jersey," I responded.

"(laughs) I know I was just giving you a hard time," he said, before offering an unsolicited history lesson on soccer in Buenos Aires.

"Are you from Argentina?" I asked, knowing damn well he was not from Argentina and that he was probably from Haiti.

"No, I'm from Haiti, but I'm just a big soccer fan," he said.

"Cool," I said before shaking his hand and wishing him a good day.

Then he continued to yell at people who were trying to take pictures of the WTC site over the fence that surrounds the construction zone. I'm not sure what good that does, since there hundreds of other ways to get pictures of the construction site. But I am glad to know that a cool Haitian guy who is so knowledgeable on Argentine soccer is doing his part to prevent future terrorism.

And that was my day two weeks ago. Maybe I will catch up on other silly, worthless anecdotes I have not blogged about another day.

note: the photo above is not the nice security guard, but someone who came up on a Google image search of 'Haiti'

09-10 Hoops Preview

I know college basketball does not start for a couple of months, but consider this my 2009-2010 college basketball preview. Also I hope you realized that my last post was the 2009-2010 women's college basketball preview.

I hope Arizona does well.

I hope Oregon does well.

I hope Lance Stephenson makes Brooklyn and Cincy proud and picks up at least 3 felonies by the time conference play starts.

The only other person I really care about is Louisville's Peyton Siva. I first saw Peyton play in an AAU tournament after his sophomore year of high school. He was a flashy, score-first point guard who wore the number 3. I was sold. I talked to him a couple times for meaningless interviews, but unfortunately he was too young to be a hilarious asshole yet (not everyone is blessed with the Marbury gene).

I saw him play again after his junior year and by this time he had several tats including "GOD'S GIFT" on his inner biceps. He also reps Seattle hard.

I rarely use Twitter, but because I can't fall asleep before 1 I found myself killing time on my Twitter homepage. I forgot I followed peytonsiva3, but I am glad I do because of his brilliants tweets like this:

I want to meet Obama. He like the coolest person. No homo
6:04 PM Aug 24th from TwitterFon

Another reason to root for Peyton is that he looks just like the dude from V for Vendetta.

Once again it's on

I used to claim that I started this blog to hone my writing, practice journalism and some other bullshit that I have since forgotten. Having unofficially given up on transitions, cohesive paragraphs and anything else that would moderately resemble legitimate writing, I present a post of trill stuff I did in Philadelphia.

- I have lived in New York for a couple months and I have never seen a celebrity on the streets. The first time I was in Philly within 24 hours I saw Jim Cramer. On my most recent trip, within 2 hours I ran into Danny Bonaduce. If you want to bump shoulders with A-listers and mega-celebrities, Philly is for you.

- My friend/Philly ambassador Tarny and I went to the Philadelphia Mint to see blue-collar Philadelphians do the US government minimum wage's worth of work just to make a dime. It was mildly exciting. I learned that the Philly Mint alone makes 6 billion pennies a year, which seems like a giant waste in every way imaginable.

- Every time I go to Philly I get a cheesesteak, enjoy a Rita's water ice, listen to a lot of State Property, see famous celebrities, and convert a lot of money to weird state quarters in the dope coin-converting machines Philly is famous for. Last time I was there I got some Guam jumpoffs, this time I got some American Samoas.

- I toured Tarny's dad's frozen-food warehouse, which has a dope roof that overlooks the city. I recommended Tar build a basketball court atop the roof to which Tar responded, "I would never do that because I would be too afraid my best friend would fall off trying to touch the top of the backboard. Then I would not be able to sleep at night and I'd spend the rest of my life working as a security guard at a local high school."


- The warehouse currently has a 60'x100' American flag painted on the side, which is cool, but not half as trill as the massive Iverson Reebok advertisements that once covered the wall. If I could go back to any time in history it would be living in Philly for AI's glory years.


-It goes without saying that Tar and I listened to Freeway's Flipside about 2o times.

- I rehearsed meeting Tarny's D1-hooping sister Rosie with her cardboard cut-out.

- Then I met the real deal, ate some cheesesteaks, and asked her a million questions about playing in Mac Court.

- We then bounced to the mall, found some Mike Vick tees and copped 3 purr. Didn't have to think twice. Done deal.

- The mall also had a jewelry shop selling a huge I-95 medallion. A Mike Vick tee and a I-95 pendant, this mall had everything I could ever ask for. Unfortunately these cz's were a monochromatic grey bling, unlike Joey Crack's multicolored pendant. The sales representative noticed my interest and asked if I wanted it. I told him that I needed the I-10 jumpoff. Which I did not know was a real thing until I saw K-Town wearing his.

- I'm overlooking the whole point behind wearing huge interstate inspired pendants is to make it known to anyone with 50 feet of you that you have moved cocaine along the I-95. A feat I have yet to accomplish and probably won't accomplish any time soon.

Linkstigating

As many of you know I am a huge Lang Whitaker fan. I have read his writing at SLAM since I was a freshman in high school and he's pretty much the reason (for better or worse) I studied journalism and wanted to be a writer.

I met with Lang two weeks ago to get some advice the writing industry and life. As an added bonus he bought me a great lobster melt from Cosi's that I will forever be grateful for. In short, Lang was a really good guy and he was quite helpful.

Lang was kind enough to run my notes from last Wednesday's Entertainers Basketball Classic in last Friday's "Links."

Below are some additional notes from last Wednesday that I did not e-mail to Lang.

************

-- After watching the first 15 minutes of the USA/Mexico game at work I ran across town to catch the second half at Nevada Smiths. Luckily I was one of the first 10 in a line at least 30 deep that got access to the bar for the second half. Sure I could have gone down the block, paid less for a beer and had a seat to watch the game, but the atmosphere would have not even been close.

-- I proudly ordered a Bud Light, blissfully ignoring the fact that the European company InBev owns Anheuser Busch. It was still a statement drink against all the Mexicans in the bar with their bottles of Corona.

-- The United States lost 2-1 and every USA-backer was forced to walk out of the bar to Mexico supporters chanting "¡Olé, Olé, Olé!"

-- Normally I'm a big Mexico fan, having grown up in the Southwest and picked up all my Spanish from Mexicans, but I left the bar furious and ready to join the Minute Men.

-- I bumped Shyne's first album on my Zune to fuel my rage, but it actually relieved my tension to be reminded that Shyne will be a free man on October 6th. I pray every day he post a "housing-wanted" ad on Craigslist and moves into my apartment.

-- I then hopped on the train uptown to catch the Entertainer's Basketball Classic semi-finals at Rucker Park.

......

Read the rest of my notes midway through this Links column.

**I'd also like to publicly hate on Gould for failing to edit my notes before I sent them to Lang. As a result there is a line that reads: "Even though it was a great guy that went down to the wire, Brandon Jennings did not look up once from his Sidekick."

It should read: "Even though it was a great game that went down to the wire, Brandon Jennings did not look up once from his Sidekick." Thank you Gould for making my man-crush on Brandon Jennings look even gayer than it already is.

Brandon Jennings and such

Because I feel some odd moral obligation to reblog everything Brandon Jennings. Here is his new Under Armor commercial, which even I will admit is incredibly retarded. I don't get the odd, fake-dunk sequences nor do I like the cheesy rap music that randomly begins playing.



I got this picture e-mailed to me from wherespmac-reader Brian. It's now my favorite picture of all time. Brandon to photographer: "Make it look as if I am talking to God, but at the same time make it understood that I am more important than God."



Props to Nathanial Butler/Getty/NBAE for the pic.

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In college I never really understood the role of teacher's assistants. I still really have no clue what they did. But I do know that my friend Tyler and I would have never had "Summer Heights High" years before it aired in America if it weren't for one of Tyler's pseudo-teachers telling him about the show during my junior year.

Furthermore I would have never known about Diggable Planets collaborating with Tide laundry detergent to make this commercial if it were not for my former TA linking to the advertisement on Facebook.



And just to prove that I will buy anything rappers sell, I bought the coldwater detergent. And because it was on sale at Target.

Jersey talk

This is a couple years old in internet time, but this is my favorite promotion in the history of sports. The Nets' "10 gets you 10!" promo pack gives 8 games (10 if you count match-ups against the Knicks and Clippers) and 5 of the greatest reversible jerseys of all time.

I'm a pretty big NBA fan, which means I watched almost every playoff game and waited in line for 6 hours to get tickets to the NBA Draft. But I still had no idea who #22 on the Nets was. According to their roster (oddly sponsored by Haier) it's Jarvis Hayes, who averaged 8.7 points for the Nets last year. He's also now my favorite Net since his jersey is one half of the Lebron James jersey included in the package.

There are also these new Portland jerseys which are amazing and hideous at the same time. They are right behind Brandon Jennings' 3 Milwaukee jerseys on my list of "Authentic jerseys I talk about buying every day but will never actually buy."