A Cold Hearted, Winter Breakdown

Yeah, I haven't been here in a month, but that's not too important.

Just recently a few hours ago, there was a massive shooting spree at an elementary school in Newton, Connecticut. Various news sources estimated that between 27-30 lives were claimed, with 18 school children as part of it. I don't like to discuss about shit like this, but I had to recognize this tragedy since it took place at an uncertain time just as the holiday season is underway.

There are two things many people might do from this. They can cry and pray for the families of the kids and the school affected by this or they can just ignore it so that it won't distract their holiday spirit. I'm not saying which one to choose, but to me, my concern is the kids that witnessed the shooting there. I mean, they're are probably on their last day of the school year before the start their Christmas break, and now instead of looking forward to sitting on the lap of a part-time St. Nick in the mall, they're gonna have this terrible devastation being tattooed in their memory forever. It coincidentally weird cause I was just watching the movie 44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shootout over the weekend and I lived in North Hollywood when the actually robbery took place at the Bank Of America in Laurel Canyon Boulevard back in February 28, 1997, just five days before my 9th birthday. I was in school that time and once the shots went out, which I didn't hear despite being two and a half miles from that Bank of America, the LAPD suddenly came during recess and we all had to be locked down in our classrooms for the rest of the day. Crazy shit.

The massacre that took place in Sandy Elementary School in Connecticut wasn't the only tragedy that happened this month. Just at the beginning of December, a player of the Kansas City Chiefs offed himself in front of the coaching staff, including head coach Romeo Crennel. A few hours before that, he took the life of his then girlfriend at his apartment. I didn't even watch the NFL that weekend because of that, but I was surprised that Coach Romeo Crennel actually coached the team the following day against the Carolina Panthers, which the Chiefs won that game. I mean, THE MAN SAW HIS OWN PLAYER TAKE HIS LIFE AWAY, AND THAT'S REAL SHIT. Typically, I'd think he'd be in shock or emotionally affected from witnessing that mess but somehow he went strong and went to work the next day. The Kansas City Chiefs could've gave him the week off or two and let the assistant coaches substitute for him, but that's just my opinion. Honestly, the league should just give him the berth for the Coach of the Year award, cause going out in public after seeing someone's life being claimed in person takes serious guts.

As far as the families of the students in Newton, Connecticut, their Chirstmas/Holiday plans are now fucked from today's massacre, even some of the parents who's kids were thankfully safe. Again, I really don't like to talk about stuff like this during the holidays, but that just shows that not everyone is perfect. I give my sincere best and condolences to everyone that made it safe and the families of the students from Sandy Elementary School. A tragic way to start the winter break that every child looks forward to. Shit like eventually happens, yet, as a resolution for the holidays and the New Year, we all just don't want it to happen. Thanks for your time reading and make it a great weekend.

Thanksgiving came early....again.

It was just another weekend for me. Mostly with friends and some excellent pro-football.

Saturday was just mostly spent at the DLT's for my friend Marlene's daughter, Yvonne, for her baby shower that was taking place. I went there for two purposes: to take photos of the event and to show support as well. As I was heading my way over there, I needed to stop someplace to eat since I didn't consume anything after waking up late as usual. I could've gone to my church for their weekly potluck, but instead, I went to this pizza parlor just up a block on Glenoaks and Roxford. The Subway there was my original choice, but since I've passed by that place a hundred thousand times for the past nine years, I decided to try out their pizza for the first time.

It was very decent. I like it, probably the best 5 bucks I spent for two slices. It was run by this Hispanic lady in her late 20's and another girl, who I assume might be her sister or cousin in high school, that's probably doing a weekend gig for some cash. Place was small with a 4 arcade machines and a regular size flat screen TV hovering on the ceiling. They were showing a bullshit episode of True Life profiling this teenage girl who has to deal with their embarrassing mom's that has very large fake breasts and some crying shit. I didn't want to watch that while I was eating in risking regurgitation, so I made the owner of the restaurant change it to the Stanford/Oregon Pac-12 college football game. This Andrew Luck kid is gonna be the talk on the sports world for the next couple of months. I won't be surprised if he gets drafted by Indianapolis next year, if he decides to not play his senior year with Stanford. After consuming those two slices and a cup of water, I then dipped out to the DLT's. Shoutout to Bella's Pizza for the quick, delicious lunch.

The baby shower for Yvonne was pretty much handled like another regular kickback at her place like before. Only difference was that it was mostly women that was in attendance, and obviously, I didn't have a problem with that. I brought a black tarp as a background for a "prom night portrait" style photoshoot that I did for everyone there, the first time I ever did that for any event I did. The stock photos actually came out well, but I might tweak them up a bit. I didn't have any strobes or studio lighting to use, just some of the light that's occupied in the house and the built in flash on the camera. My uncle is getting his SB-600 flashgun repaired. Aside from that, everything else was absolutely chill. Spent the night there and watched a bit of football as soon as I woke up from a two hour sleep, cause I drank some Pepsi the night before that kept me awake the whole night.

I didn't go to test drive some Cadillacs at The Grove on like I said in the last post, but whatever, I drove several of them in Glendale last month. They also had the annual Glamourcon event at the Long Beach Convention Center, which is a meet and greet of former Playboy bunnies from the 1970's, 80's and 90's. I could've gone, but I rather take photos of those models from the way the looked 20 or 30 years ago. Sunday was just mostly spent at the DLT's just checking out the Niners/Redskins game, which ended up with San Francisco becoming 7-1 since Steve Young was the starting Quarterback there in that ball club in the 90's. The rest of the early games were blowouts. I thought FOX was gonna air the Packers/Chargers game in the afternoon, but they showed the Giants/Patriots game that had the shittiest scoreless first half I've ever seen. I left when halftime started (thanks to Katie Galvez for the lift back to my place).

When I got back home, I wanted to rest to make up for the loss of hours that I didn't sleep, but one of my housemates was going off with his karaoke system in the living room, and to be honest, I FUCKING DON'T LIKE BEING IN KARAOKE SCENES. I can't sing for shit, and I'm glad I've never tried it in my life, ever. To avoid hearing him from my room singing every catalog more than twice for the remainder of the time (no joke, EVERY SONG MORE THAN TWICE) I shook over to my friend Frank's house just not too far from where I live. got a chance to see the final seconds of the Giants/Patriots game and damn, that shit felt ALOT like their duel in Super Bowl XLII. Brady losing at home for the first time is like him breaking his team perfect season record in the 2007 season. That feeling was just... damn, with a different New York Giants team. Hopefully, Eli Manning earned a lot of confidence from that game. I also got a chance to see the end of the Packers/Chargers game thanks to Frank's DirecTV Game Mix feature, where its every game in one screen. Resulted with Green Bay still proving why they're the World Champions by defeating San Diego in a crazy 45-38 win. The Sunday Night game between Pittsburgh and Baltimore was brilliant. A lot of defense was displayed and it was worth watching. I still think that Ray Lewis has several years left in the league, but it was a great game nonetheless with the Ravens embarrassing the Steelers fans at their stadium.

That was my weekend. Its pretty much the usual that I do every week, friends and football. Thanks as always to the De La Torre's and the Galvez's for inviting me to Yvonne's baby shower and shoutout to the young female cashier at the Burger King in San Fernando for complementing my red St. John's Bay shirt on Sunday Night. The rest of this week was emotional news so far for some African American notable figures in the news. Dr. Conrad Murrary is finally going to jail, boxing legend Joe Frazier died from liver cancer last night and now this afternoon, hip hop legend Heavy D passed away. I wasn't alive to see Joe Frazier duke it out in the ring, but I was jumping from different nursery schools in North Hollywood every six months with my little sister in the 90's when Heavy D was getting exposure then. I remember glancing on some of his videos back when BET did a top 20 video countdown every Saturday afternoon with a different guest host paying their favorite music videos back in 2005, and a few of them chose Heavy D and the Boyz. I also remember seeing him making special guest appearances in a few repeat episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and A Different World.

Damn, his passing got me by surprise. I was coming back from taking photos of Shakira's Walk of Fame ceremony at Hollywood and Vine today (she is VERY fine and I've fucked with her music since Laundry Service back in 8th grade), and found out about Heav's death as soon as got on the internet. I actually could've spent this last paragraph blabbering about witnessing Shakira in person for the first time and how it was the CRAZIEST Walk Of Fame that I've ever been to in 5 years, but two deaths withing 24 hours is just as bizarre as the passings I've seen vanished back in 2009. Just be blessed and thankful for your life, and give back to those who helped you got to where you're at right now. Enjoy the rest of the week.

TO ALL THOSE FEMALES WHO OVER-WORSHIP TEENAGE POP STARS

Please don't use death treats towards the girl that your favorite celebrity is "dating" or having a photoshoot with, or whatever of that kind of nature. Death is not a play thing. To be honest, you're NEVER gonna get a chance with the both of y'all being together for Heaven knows how long. Think about it for a second, you do whatever it is with him and then what? It gets dry boring after that and plus, the said celebrity has to work everyday. To make it even from a male's perspective, all the hot attractive actresses and models that I used to think about every 2 seconds are now part time and full time mothers. There goes my chance of poppin' their cherries and I'm not to concerned about it... well a little bit.

Speaking of teenagers, I have to go to my pop's house later on cause my little sister has invited a multitude of her friends for her sixteenth birthday party over there. First time ever a non-Nigerian party is being thrown there featuring a bunch of Juveniles expecting to to be disrespectful, and that's where my task as a chaperon gets thrown in. Its gonna be a challenge.

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.