Today, I sent out an e-vite for my birthday party on August 13th. Since New Jersey is not worthy, I've decided to return to my roots and party in Boston for my 26th birthday. My boy Greg is letting me use his apartment, my boy Josue is cooking most of the food, my boy Junior will keep the music popping (shhh...he doesn't know that yet) and my boy Tyrone will be in charge of hyping the crowd (he'll need permission from his woman to leave the house that night...lol). I will be in charge of the liquor and the master of ceremonies. Hosting a party is a hard hustler...you have to first convince people to come to your party and when they get there you have to keep them entertained. I'm confident that I can accomplish both. For my party people out there, what are some of your birthday party highlights? what about lowlights? For your entertainment, I have disclosed some of mine.
Celebration 2000 - (Lowlight) - For my 21st b-day, I go bowling with a bunch of my boys and a female friend of mine. We bowl for like 2 hours and somewhere during that time my "IDIOT" friend makes a sexual joke. I slapped him in the back of his head before he finished the full joke but as I glanced at my female friend the damaged was already done. She rolled her eyes, kissed her teeth and folded her hands. Yup, a HUGE flag on the play!
Celebration 2003 - (Highlight) - My boys from Boston drove up to Schenectady, N.Y. to hang out with me for the weekend. We went out to the hotspot in Albany, N.Y. on the Friday night they arrived. I didn't pay a cover, I didn't pay for any drinks and no woman said no to a dance. It was a good night. We decided to continue the festivities with an impromptu trip to NYC for another club night. I picked the spot and we went to Club Cheetah in lower Manhattan. The $30 cover charge was the only dissappointment but let me say...(wipes forehead)...the sights were well worth the $$$. The place was so packed that everytime I turned around...I was bumping into beautiful females. I got three numbers that night and my boys came EVER so close to a very expensive, 2-hour cab ride back to my apartment in Schenectady, N.Y. I'm not a heartless dude so I passed on the extracurricular activities, put the numbers in my wallet and drove my drunken friends back to my apartment.
Celebration 2004 - (Highlight) - I had reservations for a party of two with Ms. T!
Celebration 2005 - ?
Friday, July 22, 2005
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
NABJ Convention Countdown!
In two weeks, my two-year NABJ convention drought will end.
My two-year absence is with just cause though. I've been blessed.
My first job out of college in 2003 barred me from having the courage to ask for time off so soon after being hired. I missed the NABJ convention in Dallas. It wasn't like I missed a city that I had never visited. I did a summer sports internship at the Dallas Morning News in 2000...so memories of a hot, HOT, HOT summer flashed before my eyes. So, I passed.
Accepting my second professional (and current job) erased the possibility of attending the UNITY 2004 convention in D.C. Now, I was truly upset about missing D.C. I've been to D.C. several times when I visited my friend at Howard University. Lovely city and amazing nightlife. I will say the most luxurious nightclub on the East Coast (maybe in the U.S.) is in D.C...The Dream Nightclub (now called Love) is truly world class...if you don't believe me visit their website and form your own opinion.
Now we are in 2005 and the Atlanta NABJ convention is 14 days away.
I'm serving on a panel at the NABJ convention and I will be celebrating my upcoming 26th birthday as much as possible. To be honest, I need a break and I need to be amongst more of my young black journalist friends throughout the country. At work, I am the only black reporter in the sports department and my friend Kevin is the only black copy editor in sports. Throughout the newsroom there are more of us. I will give my employer, the Asbury Park Press, three and a half mics for hiring several more black people on the editorial side since I arrived in August of 2oo4. However, my true journalism family has branches all over the United States and you can say Atlanta will be a big reunion. I know I've been the prodigal son since 2003...don't worry that changes in 14 days...and hopefully that will be the end of my wayward convention ways.
My two-year absence is with just cause though. I've been blessed.
My first job out of college in 2003 barred me from having the courage to ask for time off so soon after being hired. I missed the NABJ convention in Dallas. It wasn't like I missed a city that I had never visited. I did a summer sports internship at the Dallas Morning News in 2000...so memories of a hot, HOT, HOT summer flashed before my eyes. So, I passed.
Accepting my second professional (and current job) erased the possibility of attending the UNITY 2004 convention in D.C. Now, I was truly upset about missing D.C. I've been to D.C. several times when I visited my friend at Howard University. Lovely city and amazing nightlife. I will say the most luxurious nightclub on the East Coast (maybe in the U.S.) is in D.C...The Dream Nightclub (now called Love) is truly world class...if you don't believe me visit their website and form your own opinion.
Now we are in 2005 and the Atlanta NABJ convention is 14 days away.
I'm serving on a panel at the NABJ convention and I will be celebrating my upcoming 26th birthday as much as possible. To be honest, I need a break and I need to be amongst more of my young black journalist friends throughout the country. At work, I am the only black reporter in the sports department and my friend Kevin is the only black copy editor in sports. Throughout the newsroom there are more of us. I will give my employer, the Asbury Park Press, three and a half mics for hiring several more black people on the editorial side since I arrived in August of 2oo4. However, my true journalism family has branches all over the United States and you can say Atlanta will be a big reunion. I know I've been the prodigal son since 2003...don't worry that changes in 14 days...and hopefully that will be the end of my wayward convention ways.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Up In the Club!
Go, go, go, go!
Go, go, go Sherlon!
It's your birthday!
We gon' party like it's yo birthday!
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday!
-50 Cent's "In Da Club"
Well, the actual birthday is not until August 13th but I decided to kick off the U.S. birthday tour in New Jersey on Friday night. I went to the Deko Lounge in Sayreville with a bunch of co-workers. It was one of those hood-rich joints. They say proper dress and YOU follow the rules but then you still see dudes in there with jeans and sneakers. I realized that I can still get down on the dance floor. However, I must start a moratorium on spots that are 18 plus for women and 21 plus for guys or I need to patten a device that takes a woman's fingerprint and deciphers how old she is. A tool like that would save me some unnecessary consternation. Everything that looked good...looked young and recently hatched from its shell. I will be 26 next month and these days I can't even flirt with a woman that isn't at least 21. I'm all set with wasting my breath on a female that isn't.... a) legally able to drink...b) gainfully employed with a full-time job...c) living on her own and paying her own bills...d) single with NO baby daddy drama. Will the real women please stand up and holla at this brother?
Future Tour Stops
Atlanta (August 2-7)
Boston (August 12-14)
D.C. (August 26-28)
The Caribbean (In the fall)
Go, go, go Sherlon!
It's your birthday!
We gon' party like it's yo birthday!
We gon' sip Bacardi like it's your birthday!
-50 Cent's "In Da Club"
Well, the actual birthday is not until August 13th but I decided to kick off the U.S. birthday tour in New Jersey on Friday night. I went to the Deko Lounge in Sayreville with a bunch of co-workers. It was one of those hood-rich joints. They say proper dress and YOU follow the rules but then you still see dudes in there with jeans and sneakers. I realized that I can still get down on the dance floor. However, I must start a moratorium on spots that are 18 plus for women and 21 plus for guys or I need to patten a device that takes a woman's fingerprint and deciphers how old she is. A tool like that would save me some unnecessary consternation. Everything that looked good...looked young and recently hatched from its shell. I will be 26 next month and these days I can't even flirt with a woman that isn't at least 21. I'm all set with wasting my breath on a female that isn't.... a) legally able to drink...b) gainfully employed with a full-time job...c) living on her own and paying her own bills...d) single with NO baby daddy drama. Will the real women please stand up and holla at this brother?
Future Tour Stops
Atlanta (August 2-7)
Boston (August 12-14)
D.C. (August 26-28)
The Caribbean (In the fall)
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Priceless Cheating Moments
My source of reference for this entry is the movie "Brown Sugar." I was watching it on VH-1 on Thursday.
Let me set up the scene.
Taye Diggs accidentally takes his wife's cell phone again (played by Nicole Ari Parker) and she gets a kinky text message. It is a rendezvous and he decides to take Sanaa Lathan to the restaurant where his wife and some man are having a dinner. She's obviously cheating on him and he wants to confront her. Diggs and Lathan walk up on Parker and her dinner date. When Parker sees Diggs, her mouth drops like someone threw an anchor into the ocean. She's speechless. I thought this was the best scene in the whole damn movie...and the best moment was when Diggs tells the waiter "I need to celebrate. I want to order the most expensive bottle of champagne in this place. I need to celebrate my divorce." He says the last sentence as he takes a fork and taps a crystal glass.
Very few moments in our life stand out like that. Hell, Kodak has turned the phrase Kodak moment into normal venacular. Mastercard has told us those moments are priceless.
So, how does your real life Kodak cheating moment measure up to the movie? And would you say it was truly priceless as Mastercard insists?
Let me set up the scene.
Taye Diggs accidentally takes his wife's cell phone again (played by Nicole Ari Parker) and she gets a kinky text message. It is a rendezvous and he decides to take Sanaa Lathan to the restaurant where his wife and some man are having a dinner. She's obviously cheating on him and he wants to confront her. Diggs and Lathan walk up on Parker and her dinner date. When Parker sees Diggs, her mouth drops like someone threw an anchor into the ocean. She's speechless. I thought this was the best scene in the whole damn movie...and the best moment was when Diggs tells the waiter "I need to celebrate. I want to order the most expensive bottle of champagne in this place. I need to celebrate my divorce." He says the last sentence as he takes a fork and taps a crystal glass.
Very few moments in our life stand out like that. Hell, Kodak has turned the phrase Kodak moment into normal venacular. Mastercard has told us those moments are priceless.
So, how does your real life Kodak cheating moment measure up to the movie? And would you say it was truly priceless as Mastercard insists?
Monday, July 11, 2005
1-Year Anniversary
Quick...what was your life like exactly one year ago? My life was a tornado spinning out of control. I was at my first job out of college at the Schenectady (N.Y.) Daily Gazette. I was the only black reporter in the building and the youngest reporter as well. As you can guess, I had no one to relate to at my job. I had friends at other media outlets in the Capital Region of New York but they were transplants like myself and wanted to get the hell out of there a.s.a.p. My personal life was on a see-saw. My girlfriend unexpectedly dumped me and my younger sister was acting a fool in my hometown of Brockton, Mass. My mother wanted me to move back home but I was finally living on my own for the first time and loving it. A year later, I have a new job as a sports reporter at the Asbury Park Press (N.J.) and I'm working with people more my age. My boy Kevin Howell, who was part of the Sports Journalism Institute with me in 2000, also works here as a copy editor. My media friends from NY's Capital Region have all scattered (to various parts of the country) like a bunch of roaches when the light switch is flicked on. I'm single (by choice now) and decided to remain friends with my ex-girlfriend. My sister has chilled out and mother wishes me the best. A year later, I feel like my life is better off...what about you?
Sunday, July 10, 2005
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