(via understanddafundamentals)
Here is Golden Globe award winner Don Cheadle arriving for our table read this morning.
Thanks to everyone who watched the House of Lies premiere last night. New episodes will air every Sunday at 10pm on Showtime. Can’t wait for you to see what happens next.
(via popculturebrain)
[video]
I’ve come to a point in my life where I’m extremely comfortable in my own skin. I’m unapologetic about who I am and it’s because the process of getting here wasn’t always so smooth. I was an awkward teen. I can easily see who I was now but back then I thought I was cool as hell. I was known in my high school and I got a fair amount of attention but I wasn’t “the man” in school by any means. My two best friends weren’t “the man” either and they were a year ahead of me. Together we provided our school with a lot of comic relief. We enjoyed a good joke. Now many would be happy with that moderate status and we were. Maybe because we all knew there was another level of status that was owned by another group of dudes.
The dudes who enjoyed “the man” status were the Gods of my high school life. They had the love of a famous singing group, in fact they WERE a singing group. The group was named Vizion and after high school they would go on to have success and be signed to Michael Jackson’s label. These guys were it! They had perfect Teddy Riley style S-Curls and five octave range. Their clothes were the very best Oaktree could provide and I’m by no means clowning because Oaktree was the shit during our high school days. These dudes even had dope R&B names like Dez, Corley, and B-zo! The girls loved them in a way that modern day teens scream for Justin Beiber. Vizion had chicks screaming for them as they went from class to class throughout the day. These Vizion dudes were getting it. If a girl was feeling you but found out a Vizion dude was feeling her then you my friend had to kiss that chick goodbye. Not only were these dudes great singers but their speaking voices had an R&B feeling to it. When you attended school with these guys you knew you were number two.
Now we jump twenty plus years later and I am the father of a high school student. My son is a freshman in high school now. He’s six feet and a starter on the JV basketball team. My son is handsome kid with style which means he’s the exact opposite of me in high school. See my son IS Vizion. He’s a part of a group in his own way. They don’t sing in five part harmony but they play a sport which is to me, someone who did neither in high school, the same thing. I’m challenged as a parent now because I have no point of reference on how to be “the man” in high school. I’ve got awkward on lock. I can explain how to avoid getting your assed whooped by the thug and how to deal with your chick getting took by a flyer dude but I have no idea how to explain or help him be a “top dog.” That’s the strange thing about life and how it works itself out. Your children while being a product of you are not you. They are their own unique individual. I walked into high school green and not knowing anybody in the building. My son had the benefit of playing the entire summer with his high school team so he walked in with friends and a support system. If I didn’t love this kid with all my heart I’d hate his fucking guts!!
But all jokes aside, I think my high school years were incredible and the goal of a parent is to see to it that their kids have it better than they did. If that is the case then I’m doing the right thing. I wouldn’t want my son to go through some of the harder things I went through and I know that any life by looking on the outside always appears easy. I’m sure Vizion had some tough times back in the day. Tough times like figuring out which club shoes to wear to school or how to handle it when their gel was low and how to keep their curl moist. They probably also had to deal with how to juggle five different chicks who all wanted to kick it with them on a Friday night. Whatever challenges my son will face whether I have experience or not I will try to deal with it in a way that will steer him in the right direction. That will take Vizion and luckily, I have that.
“I saw [Martin Lawrence after his stroke} and I said ‘Oh my God, Martin, are you OK?’ and he said ‘I got the best sleep I ever got in my life’. That’s how tough he is. So let me ask you this — what is happening in Hollywood that a guy that tough will be on the street, waving a gun, screaming ‘They’re trying to kill me’? What’s going on? Why is Dave Chappelle going to Africa? Why does Mariah Carey make a $100 million deal and take her clothes off on TRL? A weak person cannot get to sit here and talk to you. Ain’t no weak people talking to you. So what is happening in Hollywood? Nobody knows. The worst thing to call somebody is crazy. It’s dismissive. ‘I don’t understand this person so they’re crazy’. That’s bullshit. These people are not crazy. They are strong people. Maybe the environment is a little sick.” — Dave Chappelle, Inside the Actor’s Studio (via palahniukandchocolate)
(via understanddafundamentals)
Open Letter to Katt Williams by Mitchell Marchand -
We all laughed at his comedy, now we laugh as he spirals out of control but who prays for Katt?
I am not a Unicorn. I am not the Lochness Monster. I am not Big Foot. I am a Black Married man in America. I would like to thank you for welcoming me to your great land and please do not worry if I will eat the heads of your children based on my status as a Black Married Man in America. I am not an Alien from a faraway distant planet. See, I’m human. I don’t eat children’s heads, I like lemon pepper wings just like you. I bleed red blood just like your boyfriend and baby daddy. I’m just like them not much different. All I did was take the “y” off of wifey and the two kids we have together share not only my looks but the same address and last name. We are a family.
No, I didn’t marry her because her Dad is rich and she certainly didn’t marry me for money. See, I married her because I love her. Both of our kids were not only conceived in love but are raised in an environment of it. I’m no celebrity yet many women I come across treat me as such based on my status as a Black Married Man in America. While the intro to this piece may seem a bit over the top it’s not too far from the answers I have to give to some questions I receive from women when they realize I’m a Black Married Man In America.
I’m put on a pedestal by women I come across who notice my ring finger shimmering in the sunlight. My wife is viewed by them as some Tinker Bell type fairy who has sprinkled pixie dust on me to get me to say I do. To single men, I’m viewed as some type of sellout. A guy who gave up the “life” of drinking on a nightly basis without the responsibilities of helping your second grader do his homework. The truth is we are neither. We have our similarities and we have our differences. She likes to go to church on Sunday, I like the NFL on Sunday so obviously we have some scheduling issues. In the end, we make it work.
Marriage is tough and requires communication almost constantly. There is a checks and balances system my wife and I both have to adhere to in order for this thing to run smoothly. By smoothly, I mean the most up and down bumpy roller-coaster of life that is absolutely draining but at the end of the day when we’re both on the couch we can look at one another and say “I like that person watching television with me.” We’re friends and enjoy each others company and that’s important because being Black and Married in America doesn’t come without some backlash.
I started this piece proclaiming I’m not Big Foot but sometimes I might as well be. See, if Big Foot walked around in the streets some people wouldn’t want to hang with him. He’d be so different that he would have to find some solace in being by himself. I mean for Gods sake, who wants to kick it with a hairy guy with no clothes on. Sometimes being a Black Married Man In America feels that way. My wife and I have both felt some mild shunning from those outside as a result of our union. It’s like when my team loses I’m in no rush to watch Sportscenter. Well, Team Single sometimes has no interest in being around Team Married. It’s a part of the deal.
I guess part of the deal is to be looked at as some artifact in a museum and to be asked questions like a creature who was long presumed to be a myth that was suddenly discovered to be alive and real. I don’t wish to be considered this way but I guess it’s what I have to deal with it. I’m no different and I wish sometimes people didn’t act different around me. I’m not your church Pastor. Don’t hide your drink when I walk in the room, offer me one. I know many Black men who are married and we exist on this planet. We’re not an army seeking to recruit others but when you decide to walk through the door we’ll be glad to welcome you. Until then, unmarried women know I was slow to join the married man side, maybe like the guy you’re seeing right now. I ducked and dodged when pressured about the day I was buying a ring when asked by her friends, maybe like the guy you’re seeing right now. So even though I’m a Black Married Man In America the guy you gush over for my decision to be legit, I was once the guy you’re seeing right now. My wife had the patience and the vision to see during those days I had it in me to be the man she has now. She had vision and patience. Vision and patience. Vision and patience….
(Source: apalaceforjasmine, via dreamhampton1)
(Source: slystone, via muchsole)
A writer for the new york times interviewed a series of people who had survived jumping off the golden gate bridge. Every person she interviewed admitted that about two thirds of the way down, they realized that every seemingly meaningless problem that caused them to jump was fixable.
Every single one.
(Source: waste-it-dreaming, via fitkay)