My dearest Rachel Nichols...

PLEASE don't end up like your collegue Erin Andrews

on second though, you can look like her, but only better. You know what I mean. Look forward to seeing you this upcoming season on Sundays.
Sincerely, David Nwachuku
P.S. You still owe me an autograph headshot of yourself from two years ago

I'm getting grilled up there and Who's Johnny?

well figurtively and literaly speaking however you want to put it.

I spent all of last week up in lame ass Lancaster working straightout everyday. No day offs. This job is not easy. Especially in the middle of the night. I tried my best to stay awake but I always find myself with my eyes closed. I'm talking 8-12 hour shifts. These are shifts the at Pre-med registered Nurses and pro Athletes strive though day after day non-stop. As I'm typing this, I just got through a 12 hour shift last night from 7pm to 7am. And I'm gonna do it again later tonight. A lot has happened last night:

-Some underage white kid wouldn't stop taling to me in his car. His parents were inside the Kmart, yep they have a Kmart up there.

-Some homeless dude who looked like Taylor Swift's father was eating fresh produce and had a shopping cart with him. He was behind the Home Depot next to the Kmart as I was making my rounds. I thought stealing carts was a Van Nuys/North Hollywood thing.

-This one fine hispanic-american lady, who unfortunatley has a daughter with her and the name "Johnny" tatooed on the back of her neck, she and her mother had an argument with the manager of Kmart. That fool looked EXACTLY like Steve Nash's long lost brother. I had to go in and help settle the dispute. Dude was a absolute racist. The hispanic lady's mother, or Johnny's mother-in law, needed help to transfer money and Kmart had a Western Union. The manager didn't know there was a Western Union inside Kmart. When I showed him the sign outside, he then blatenly freestyled (freestyle as in impromptu, not rapping) that he Western Union was not working. Then the lady started cursing in Spanish and then I told the family to go to some drug store for money transfer.

-Around 5am, some female Kmart employees who are opening the store thought I was drunk when I parked my car in front of the store. I told them what I do and they didn't believe me. They were also discriminting.

I'm gonna be up there for another week. I'm staying at one of my uncle's house up there. He has a widescreen TV that 50 to 60 inches I think. Plus the HD channels are no fucking joke. I'd find myself in the ER if I ever see Jackie Johnson in 1080p again. He also has NBA TV. They played the 2001 NBA All star game. That was one of the GREATEST  all star game or any professional sports games I've ever seen. Basically that was the only good thing that I ever did when I was up there last week. It had everything. A.I. at his prime, Chris Webber with the Kings (or Queens), McGrady when he was good with Orlando, Kobe with the afro and his adidas kicks, man I can go on for days. I wanna see this entirety on DVD or hell, the iTunes store.   

and as for Johnny, I'll leave that to El Debarge to find out

       

the Big Kmart next to my post. Typical Antelope Valley. 

My uncle's HD flat. Kobe was 22 there and he just won a NBA title.

Two of the then top leading scorers who would meet in the Finals in a couple of months later.

My uncle's neighborhood

It's about freakin' time!

After 14 cheapless hustling months of being actually unemployed (the photoshoots and the paparazzi stuff are a side thing) and bullshit interviews, I finally have a job. Thank the Messiah.

I just started work for this place called Ceed Secuirty Systems or something like that. The ususally assign people to different locations on security business. So these people assigned me this past weekend to look after an unfinished Walgreens in at all of places in Southern California, Lancaster. I was actually at their offices in Gardena to pick up my uniform. 

Yes the Antelope Valley. The city of Lancaster, just right above Palmdale. And I thought I disliked the San Fernando Valley the most until I had to do 12 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday. That basically the equivelent of a Nurse's part time shift at a clinic or hospital. Hell, I'd rather drive to Orange County or Riverside than to go all the way up there. Thank Jesus it's not the winter in Lancaster otherwise I'd have trouble putting chains on my tires while going on the 14 freeway. That freeway has the most CHP squads I've ever seen in the west coast. 

So I just started last Saturday. Basically all I have to do is just...stay there and watch the unfinished building. That's it. but the thing is that I have to be there for a VERY long time. I try my best to make the use of those 12 hours. I called almost everyone I can think of. Freaking bastards won't even answer. Shit, mobile phones are not what they used to be before it got too mainstream, like around 10 years ago. I remember public school teachers and business people that work in Brentwood and the Civic Center in Downtown LA that were the only people to use cell phones. And this was in the 90's. Now it's 2009 and you see 5th graders with Blackberry Pearls and 9th graders with iPhones or anything that you can touch that has a mini keyboard. You have no idea how many friendships that I had were destroyed just because of mobile devices. It's that simple, pick up the phone. 

HOPEFULLY, they put me someplace that's kinda closer. The reason I say that is because I don't like driving to Lancaster. I mean it takes me 40 minutes to get from Granada Hills to Lancaster and Vice Versa. Plus the 14 freeway is a bitch to drive through and its more hotter there than the San Fernando Valley because Lancaster is in the desert area. I have to be there for the next week so it looks like I won't be on a computer for a while. Oh, and the Walgreens I have to watch over is shared at the same property as Kmart. The have a Kmart up there. Weird. Also, Michael Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe live up in Lancaster too. If I see her at that Kmart, I probably take her picture with my phone and if she ask me why, then I'll tell her it's for security purposes.

 

Once you're Black.....

....you MUST look back!

Everytime I see this woman on TV at night....

My heart fuckin' sinks. Thanks for the headshot Jackie.

She was sad.....real sad, Paris Jackson

That title was to paraphrase Kanye West's verse from Keri Hilson's "Knock you Down" single, which to me, might be this summer's anthem.

On Monday night I missed two of the rarest telecasts in the history of television. A replay of Game 6 of the 2000 NBA Finals between the Indiana Pacers and the Los Angeles Lakers and Wall Street on the Fox Movie channel. Starting with the Game 6 repeat. ESPN Classic used to be a venue where you can watch classic NBA games and vintage NFL Films programs like NFL Films Presents, The NFL Game of the Week, and highlights of some team's season in a particular. This was like back when I was in high school some 5 years ago. Now with the advent of NBA TV and the NFL Network (which is a travesty to get in the San Fernando Valley unless you have satellite) ESPN Classic became a display of Poker World Series, RECENT, not classic, recent NCAA games, AWA Wrestling, and countless, countless, countless hours of professional Boxing which they hold endless marathons every weekend. Nowadays they rarely show the REAL good vintage sports that they used to show, and I do mean rarely. In fact, that NBA Finals game came in a heartbeat. It was the actual NBA on NBC telecast with the John Tesh "Roundball Rock" theme music, Bob Costas and Ahmad Rashad getting airtime with the peacock logo on their blazers, Chick Hearn still calling the shots, the then newly built Staples Center when the 300s section and the rest of the damn arena was lit up and a just barely legal 21-year-old Kobe Bryant rocking the Afro with his signature Adidas sneakers. This was the last finals game where they won at home court. The next 3 they won at Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Orlando. Confetti was flying and riots were all abroad outside at Figueroa St. and downtown Los Angeles (I don't know whether to compare that years riots to this past years riots). You won't find that game ever played again on a network, unless if you have a friend who's been a devoted Laker's fan since Elgin Baylor and Jerry West played in the Sports Arena before going to the Forum that taped that game. The only other alternative to watch that game is the internet, which is fine but I can't dig the slow frame rate there.

Wall Street is another film that I've been wanting to see for the past two months. Michael Douglas plays the antagonist in the film along with Charlie and Martin Sheen as the Co-stars. You can't find it on the internet. I couln't find it at Target or the Best Buys in my area. But I'll just keep looking and I'll get it once I'll see it. Again they rarely show that movie on TV.

So today I was supposed to be at a meeting with a couple of job developers to find out why I haven't been working for the past year around 10:00AM. I ditched it because I wanted to see the Michael Jackson memorial, which SHOULD'VE took place at at larger venue like the Rose Bowl where he preformed at halftime during Super Bowl XXVII in 1993 or the Coliseum where 90,000 plus people filled the place for the Lakers championship rally after the parade last month.

And it was worth missing the meeting.

They had two memorials that day: a private one in Forest Lawn cemetery at Griffith Park and a public one at Staples Center. In order to get to the public one, you had to register for the tickets at the Staples Center website, and out of 1.6 million people that entered, they randomly selected 18,000 people to witness the event. I registered the second they announced the web address at last weeks press conference at LA Live. Knowing that there was gonna be a shitload of web traffic, I had to use two computers and my brothers Playstation Portable to get through. Unfortunately I didn't get selected, but those who did had this emotion as if their child was the first one in the family to graduate from college with honors or if Sir Richard Branson (the billionaire who owns Virgin) gave everyone in England a Jaguar or a C300. Hell that ticket is so powerful, that the bids for these on ebay went for more than a 2 room house in Arleta, and people bidded on them regardless of the price.

Every channel you can think of televised this special. This event was to honor and show support for a worldwide entertainer that shut down the internet for half an hour and had his albums literary sellout everywhere after his death was announced. Despite being held at a 20,000 seat venue, the memorial went very great. It was like going to church as I was watching. A lot of famous people came and gave their share of their experience with Michael.

-Magic Johnson's speech was the most amusing, along with Kobe Bryant who's speech was the only one I missed because I was upstairs. He left out Joe Jackson's name while he was thanking the family and plugged Kentucky Fried Chicken that shot up its stock in the New York Stock Exchange like crazy a few seconds later.

-Jennifer Hudson looked really fantastic, even though she's pregnant thanks to David "Punk" Acuna from VH1's I Love New York, and I haven't seen her performed since this years' Super Bowl.

-Brooke Shields should've brought Emmanuel Lewis on stage with her.

-Al Sharpton still did his thing.

-I'm surprised that Berry Gordy is still alive. He should buy Motown back from Universal Music Group and sign that kid from Britians got Talent.

-They threw every religious symbol on the same screen during the "We are the World" performance which I thought it was awkward.

The ending was where it really went down. Michael's daughter, 11 year old Paris Katherine Jackson, spoke publically for the first time ever. If I was there I would've brought out the waterworks after she thanked her father. Honestly that was very powerful, possibly the highlight of the whole show that pundits and critics are talk about for a long time. Again, the man is a very special entertainer. The last time I can recall an event this great was Princess Diana's memorial back in 1997. He's gonna be greatly missed.

We lost another one...

So far for the past two weeks, if not the past several months, there's been a stretch of major deaths occouring. One of theses are the Air France flight that nose dived into the Atlantic Ocean last month and Yemenia Flight 626 that crashed into the Indian Ocean with lives being taken away except for one 14 year old survivor. Not to mention a number of celebrity deaths thats been taking place in these recent events. Stars such as Bea Arthur, David Carradine, Millvina Dean who is the last living survivor of the Titanic, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Billy Mays from the infomercials and of course Michael Jackon himself. 

Just a few hours ago, I learned that former Tennesee Titans quarterback Steve McNair had his life taken away along with another woman from a gunshot. This guy was a very excellent athleate. Was one of the last Houston Oilers in the Tennesee Titans before playing with Baltimore in 2006. He lead the Titans to Super Bowl XXXIV only to lose to the St. Louis Rams one yard short. I remenber watching his games when I was in high school. He was one of the quaterbacks I looked forward to seeing on Monday Night Football and he was one of the star players along with McNabb, Brett Favre (when he was in Green Bay) and Michael Vick that got me interested in the NFL more often. It's weird because last summer I met his teammate Eddie George and his Superbowl rival Marshall Faulk in at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for the Maddenpalooza event. With McNair no longer alive, it gonna be unusual for me to watch another game this upcomng season. This guy is gonna be missed for sure. 

 

Year in review...so far

Coming off a lame ass Wednesday night, even though its still going on as I type, I can't think of anything else to do right now. So I decided that I should reflect on this year so far now that we reached the midpoint of 2009. Let's see what happened so far starting with January....

Barack Obama being inagurated as President of the United States

I thought this day will never happen. Hell I had doubts for this guy when people were mentioning that he was gonna run for President, before he declared his canidacy. But through out 2008, the man emphasized change across the country with numerous visits and telling his life story on how he was brought up by his bi-racial parents and how he pulled an Alex Haley (the guy who wrote Roots) by traveling to Kenya and learning more about his ancestory. Many people started admiring him, and its not just because he's a Democrat. Its because Barack relates to the modern American culture more closely than any other past President I can think of. For example, the guy can shoot hoops, he's addicted to his Blackberry more than Robert Palmer being Addicted to love, he even took his wife Michelle to see Do The Right Thing when they first met, and he was barely 30 when that movie came out.

When the guy meant that he was gonna bring "Change" to the United States, he wasn't fuckin' kidding. He didn't just bring change, he permanetly enabled it . I think that the recession that happened last year was part of it regardless if he won or not. Its like changing the oil filter in you car by draining and cleaning the remaining excess and refilling it with the brand new product. The night when he won the election and the next day as well, people of all races were letting out their emotions of all types, viewing society more differently than they have in their past lives. Blacks were acting more seriously challenged than before, thinking that if Barack can do it big, why can't they strive and live up to match where he is. Its also an good advantage for single mothers out their, especially black mothers who have sons that don't have a father that lives with them. Barack can and might be thier role model, some who the single mother's kid can look up to as an example. The inaguration really paid off for those who have been supporting him for the past 2 years. Being an African-American myself, I may not have fully support him during the campaign, but I respect him for landing this far through out the journey.

Nadya Suleman and the Gosslins plus thier numerous children

I'm sorry, but I don't know what else there is to say about this woman. She a single mother in her early 30's, a student in college going for her masters, with no job, no husband , no income with the exception of her student loans and already has eight kids from her previous marriage. For the icing on the cake, she wanted to have those eight more kids, and she did it thorugh in-vitro fertalization. After she gave birth, I thought the media was gonna be at her for about a week. But I was wrong.

With a mix of controversy, Nadya Suleman became the center of attention in the media circus. People made fun of her and critized on televison, tabloid magazines were publishing fake-ass stories about her to get more sales, Donald Trump said that she is the reason that the recession is getting worse and a lot of single moms looked up to her because of all the weight she has to hold. I'm suprised that she would do this at a time when the financial system is a mess. Then she had to hand the torch over to Jon and Kate Gosslin.

Rhianna gets served by Chris Brown

They were refered to as the prince and princess of the hip hop industry. But one February night, something went beyond belief that nobody would ever imagine. I'm pretty sure that you know the whole story, but they were at a pre Grammy dinner event before the whole thing happened. When I first heard of it, I thought he had some sort of alcohol during the event even though he was 19. But I don't think that was the case cause he was driving a $175,000 Lamborgini that night and he knows better than to drink and drive. If Chris never let Rhianna snatch the keys from the Lamborgini's ignition and threw them out the window because she was upset of some girl that Chris was texting to, then he would've never got physical on her and sort it out like adults. The boy should have known better than to strike at a lady like Rhianna. Now I've seen both of them in person last year. Rhianna is VERY fine and Chris looks like a safety off a High School football team. I lost respect for both of them after that. They are the biggest musicans in the world and they have a lot of fans in both of them that admire their music. This is the part that really tripped me out like I was high on life or something. About a month and a half after all that took place and the inital court hearing, Rhianna forgave him and they started seeing each other for a while.

Now when you beat the shit out of a gorgeous supermodel-looking girl straight from Barbados, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, or just anywhere in South America, not only is that bitch is gone forever but you just got yourself a death certificate. Look forward to encountering her brothers, cousins, her pops and even her grandparents filing mad lawsuts and pouring shame and guilt all over your life. Jay-Z was so upset at Chris Brown, that he may force him in retirement from singing. Again, I don't even know what he was thinking when he left those brusies on her that night. Now Chris Brown has five years probation and six months community service. That's the core thing about life: Shit happens, regardless if your famous or not.

Los Angeles Lakers 2009 NBA champions

Some people don't believe in wishes, so they interpret it in this saying: Becareful what you pray and hope for, cause God might actually answer it. Los Angelenos weren't so careful with its financial situation, but they did get their hopes and prayers answered.

The Los Angeles Lakers basketball team have this tradition that they do after every game whether they win or lose. They get together, put their hands in the center with their eyes closed and recite the Lords Prayer. They focused their goals by keeping their own faith and not let anything get in the way no matter how changelling the outcomes are. I've been to the ESPN Zone in Downtown Los Angeles throughout the playoffs to watch the majority of the games. To me, I think the team had a lot of "breaks" in the playoffs like Kevin Garnett, who is one of the major core factors of the high rolling defending champions Boston Celtics, being injured in the go-around and was being forced to sit out thorughout the playoffs, causing Boston to be knocked off by the Orlando Magic. Another "break" they had was the injury of Houston Rockets center Yao Ming when the Lakers went against Houston in the second round of the playoffs. Honestly it really sucks to see that happening if you think about it. The guy has been in the league ever since I started high school back in 2002 and there are already talks that he might hang it up. I really like to see him play next season.

The NBA finals is where it could've been one way or another. The Orlando Magic could've lead 3 games to 1 in the series and finish it off at home so that the team could have their first ever world title. They were a good team through out the playoffs, hell they got rid of Boston and Cleveland Cavaliers who had the most wins in the regular season, but I could never at that time picture them with the world title. It was a great feeling when they won, despite the rowdy drunk Laker fans rioting in the streets of Los Angeles surrounding the Staples Center. That alsmost could've been me at that scene but thank God that the ESPN Zone was at full capacity, which caused a long ass line that streched parallel next to Figueroa Street. I didn't go to the victory parade for several reasons. First I wanted to let those who have never been to a Lakers game before to get a chance to see the players and the staff. I've seen the players before in person and I've been inside Staples once and sat two rows behind courtside which is equivalent to going to the Coliseum for the rally. Second was the ruckus that took place after the game was over. The scene was the same as the time where they won back in 2000 which almost cost them the chance to host the Democratic National Convention at the then newly built Staples Center. Lots of places were destroyed, including a sneaker store that was fully vandalized leaving the store completley empty. I got a chance to check out the store on the day before it was destroyed and that place had a lot of nice sneakers. All I can say was that team earned to have another banner hanging at Staples Center.

There were a lot of other things that happened this past year, but those things I mentioned are topics that people are gonna remember for a long time. Let's see what the last six months of this year and this decade brings.

Shit, let's try this again

Back when I got a Macbook when it came out in 2006 I started taking advanage of the free trial of it's then .mac service. That feature included a program where you can create your own website. So I started doing that. And this was in September of that year mind you. I was fresh out of high school and, this a was a time before anyone had an iPhone, before anyone knew that a black guy would NEVER have a shot at the whitehouse and before Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals legally, yes legally, changed his name among other things. Unfortunately, after I moved back to the valley from staying in Oxnard for the summer, my parents confiscated my laptop for a month, thus letting the trial run out. After I got it back a month later, I completely forgot about my website.

That was my first attempt, my second attempt was last year back when I turned 20 last march. I got the .mac service again, except this time it was for one full year cause I worked at the Apple store during that time. I started the website again, which looked really great. Had picutres I took and a section of my thoughts. What happened to it? A couple months later, about a few weeks after I stopped working there, I kinda lost interest on working on the site. Plus the economy was worsening at that time. So I had to let that go.

Then I relyed on Twitter In January of 2009, the day the Barack got inagurated, to express my thoughts on certain things that are happening. I created it because my original Facebook got deleted thanks to some jailbait who snitched on me to the site's security department. I had a Twitter before news anchors and substitute teachers got one. Now that site is being overdone everywhere. The other disadvantage to it is that you had to say what you want in less than 140 characters. That's like writing in essay contest for "why do you want to go to a sleep over with Demi and Selena" (I could go to hell for writing that). So therefore I took some time to think about my next motive to express my thoughts and concers cause thats the thing everybody is doing now other than sociology class.     

July 1st means a lot to me. We're halfway through the year, a lot of new laws are being put to place in various states, my friend Jade is now legal, I joined Facebook back in July 2007 (that was my original profile. I created a new one which I rarely go on) , I created a Flickr last year on July 1, 2008 ( it better not be deleted just because I don't have a Flickr Pro account), and now I have this site. Let's see how long this lasts.