TRUCKITY-TRUCK

As promised, here's a photo of that truck I was talking about in the "Platinum" post. It looks way better live, believe that.

Later.

THANKSGIVING?

It’s about that time of year – Thanksgiving. This is the American version of Christmas for the rest of us, the time when everyone – hypothetically of course – gets reunited with their family. On that fateful Wednesday everyone and their mama seems to be going somewhere. I usually go to Philly for Thanksgiving. Normally it’s a not-too-bad-trip about 2 ½ hours long. [Off the record, my best time is 1 hour 47 minutes. Sometimes I think I’m suicidal] I’ve been on the road 4 hours straight on Thanksgiving eve though in the past. But then again, if you live in the D.C. area you know that’s entirely possible. Such congestion is the norm.

There are some things I like about Thanksgiving, like being reunited with people I haven’t seen in ages. People such as crazy-ass Mose.

This dude is insane, that’s why I mess with him. For one, I’ve never met anyone else with a need for speed like him, not to mention the love of music in those fast whips. Believe me, it’s one thing driving fast but it’s another with loud music blaring. That’s the icing to the cake. The toupee to the bald man. The silicone – or is it ‘saline solution’ nowadays? – to those who want bigger breasts. The SlimFast to the obese. The internet to the geek.... you get the picture. I’ve never known anyone else to urge me to go faster, to pass the 5 cars ahead, to try and beat my current speed record from Philly to VA, or to acknowledge that some of us really have the need for speed.

I might have the Mitsu Lancer OZ Rally but he’s got the VW Golf GTI. The Japanese might make the best econoboxes but German Engineering is still superior. Look at Benz. BMW. Audi. VW. All top-notch vehicles. Look at the Japanese: Toyota. Honda. Nissan. Mitsubishi. Subaru. Isuzu. All reliable and economical vehicles. The Germans are all about performance first. [Wait a minute. Isn’t that the thesis of this blog?] The Mitsu Lancer Evo, the Subaru WRX STi and the Nissan Skyline are still the fastest street cars on the planet though, so eat dirt, all y’all German car enthusiasts! Find me a stock Benz or BMW that can match up to a stock Mitsu Evo or Subaru STi and go home with the crown. [Excluding the McLaren F1 Benz. That thing is insane!] Never. Lancers rule. Mose, catch you at the track, if you dare!

Enough about that. I was talking about Thanksgiving, I think.

It’s good to give thanks, people. There’s a lot to be thankful for, even though sometimes it may not seem like it. Truth is, there’s always someone doing worse than you. I for one believe in the existence of a supreme being, a.k.a. God, The Man Upstairs, Main Man, J.C. or whatever you call him. [No disrespect intended] Life is pointless if there’s nothing to look forward to. Wouldn’t it be f_ed up if life was all there is, as in you live, you struggle then you die? $hit, I’d want out now if that were the case!

But in my heart of hearts I know there’s something else in store, and that alone gives me hope, as it should you. Be thankful. Enjoy life – that’s what it’s all about.
True, the creditors blow the phone up every day but hey, at least they realize you have money they can get from you.
True, your girl call you up and cusses you out. At least she thinks enough about you to call.
True, you didn’t get that promotion. You deserved it but someone hated the person who took your place so much he went postal on him. That could’ve been you – be thankful.
True, you’re broke as hell and owe people money. Your greatest asset is your ability to work, so pucker up!
So you think no one loves you. That might be true. But if you get rid of yourself, no one really cares anyway. Might as well stick around!
True, life keeps dealing blow after blow and you think you can’t take it. Remember, life is a sine-curve, with high highs and low lows. Very seldom, if at all, is life predictable, which is a beautiful thing. Thing is, in life there’s all these things to absorb & experience. Take advantage of them! You only get one shot at it. Make the best of it, damnit!

More than anything, PLEASE be thankful every time that alarm goes off, as much as you hate to have to get up. Be thankful when you open your eyes and you’re still you in your room and not in the FCPD jail. [Read my previous posts – you’ll get what I mean]. Be thankful when you move your extremities and you can feel them all. [Fellas, be thankful every time you grab your stuff in the morning. It’s great knowing it’s all there, isn’t it?!] Take a deep breath and thank the Man Upstairs for waking you up whole. You had absolutely nothing to do with it – you just woke up and you were fine. Don’t take that $hit for granted!

Which brings me to the thing I wanna talk about next – egos. Keep it right here.

PLATINUM

Now that I’m older I seem to be more and more content to do less and less. Some people call it growing up. Others call it boredom, as in ‘been there done that.’ I call it laziness. Just a few years ago I seemed to have virtually unlimited amounts of energy all the time. I’d work all day, go to the basketball court and spend 2 hours hooping, drive around doing everything and nothing, get to the crib, check email and make a couple of calls and before I know it it’s 2 am. Resignedly I’d shower and sleep at maybe 2.03 am. [Yes, my showers are usually that short. They’re intense though.] The alarm clock would go off at 6.30 and I’d try and break the snooze button a couple of times. I’d eventually get up at about 6.50 and be out the house by 6.55. [Yes, 5 minutes is all I need.] I’d be at work by 7.45 and the same sequence of events would replicate. All this time I’d be 100% alert and literally bouncing off the walls with boundless energy. Not so these days. All I do after work, if I don’t have anything to do, is go to the crib and chill. I know, even I am surprised at that.

A couple of weekends ago though, I decided to break that cycle of monotony and went out to a club. A couple of my friends persuaded me to go actually. That wasn’t the sole reason I broke down and went out. It was the weekend of Howard University’s homecoming and I’ll be damned if I missed a piece of the action, you dig? Trust me fellas, if you like black people you gotta be in the DC area that weekend. I guarantee you won’t regret it. Remember Luda’s cut ‘Pimping All Over The World?’ He even mentions the homecoming at Howard. It’s that memorable. That homecoming weekend was the same weekend I ‘decided’ to hit downtown D.C.

Anyway, before I get ahead of myself, let me get back to the chronological order of events. We were in one of my boys’ truck that night. It’s a black 2005 Chevy Tahoe with everything in it. I’m talking about DVD, smoked out windows, custom running boards, custom LED brake lights, exhaust, intake, interior etc, all on 22 inches of deep-dish chrome. Trust me, this truck is a beauty. With the owner’s consent I may post a photo of it someday. Anyway, back to the story. [I like cars, as you might’ve guessed] We knew we were gonna get f_ed up so we passed by Taco Bell. I had a beef & potato burrito. [Shout-out to B.E.T. You know about this, ha ha!] We rode to D.C. headed for the Platinum Club. For all y’all who aren’t familiar with D.C., The Platinum Club is a hip-hop club. It’s OK. Too crowded though, but OK. The music is good.

There was mad people around the club. I kid you not, the line went around the block. Plus, it was a little nippy and there was this annoying drizzle – the kind you think is not serious but it ends up soaking you up. First thing I noticed when we got close to the entrance was all the scrumptious ladies around. I guess some had trickled out of Howard University but yo, even the trickle was off the chain. Honestly, I’ve never seen so many fine black women in my life. And this was just by the entrance. By some divine force we found a parking spot at the entrance to the club. And I mean at THE entrance. That means everyone was staring; if it wasn’t at the truck it was us. I prefer to think it was the latter. You and I know they were staring at the truck though!

Next thing I knew we were headed toward a much shorter line that had only 5 or so people. I was about to ask what was going on when my boy [shout-out, J-Dub] asked how much the cover was. Bouncer dude said, looking dead at us like it was nothing:

“This is the VIP line. The charge is $150.” I was about to turn back headed for the ‘ordinary’ line when J-Dub was like:
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch >d., I got you.”
“For real?” I asked, incredulous.
“Faw shaw,” he said impatiently. “Come on!”

Believe it or not, he paid for me to get into VIP. I thought that was it until we got inside and were trapped at another ‘pay booth.’ They were asking for another $50 just so we can get our own table. I was about to protest when J told me to shut up, and he paid for me again. Wow. That was $200 spent already and I wasn’t even in yet!

We finally get in there and get the table, a collective $1,000 later. [There was 5 of us, in case you’re mathematically challenged] The VIP lounge is butter, all nice and warm, spacious, has good music and has 99.999% female occupancy. [Howard University honeyz, remember?] Like magic, a bucket of ice appeared out of nowhere and in it in quick succession was 3 bottles of Mo, a couple of bottles of Hypno and a bottle of Henny. Glasses materialized and in two seconds every glass was full. And that’s how the VIP experience began.

The rest of the evening seems to be a blur in memory. Soon as the Henny kicked in I was suddenly into the music and the rest is history. I was determined not to dance though I usually can’t help it. Trust me again fellas, when you’re sitting in VIP keep cool. Don’t dance. Make every gesture smooth and premeditated. Never seem overeager. If you follow my advice there will never be a shortage of honeyz trying to holla. And that’s how it was. There I was looking at some of the finest looking people in the greater Washington D.C. Metropolitan area and all I did was chill and have them come to me. I vaguely remember some chick sitting down between J-Dub & me and putting her arms around us looking at us back & forth saying something to the effect of ‘y’all so fine.’ [Trust me, it must’ve been the alcohol. Fine doesn’t exactly describe me.] Then that annoying but OK joint “Shake Your Laffy Taffy” song came on and suddenly she was standing up with her booty in my face gyrating to the beat. As f_ed up as I was that booty seemed like a blur!

A moment later is when I realized that everyone in there was smoking. And I don’t mean cigarettes. Maybe that’s why I was so out of it coz of second-hand ciga-weed smoke. FYI – do you know that no one ever died from an overdose of marijuana? That’s more than I can say for some ‘medicinal’ drugs. I’ll leave that alone.

But anyway, all I remember next is my boys leaving and I was all by myself surrounded by a bevy of half-drunk Howard University ex-students drinking up our liquor. I was in no mood to socialize so I didn’t even try, but I guess they were curious about this young dude sitting in a VIP booth all by himself so they kept bugging. I must be really growing up coz I wasn’t in the mood at all. I was content to just sit there and bop to the music. Hmm, or am I getting boring? Shoot, who cares? I was happy.

Young Jeezy came through. Yes, the one and the same from “Akon and young Jeezy.” I’ll tell you what though, that iced-up diamond Snowman hanging at the base of his platinum chain is really icy. As in it seemed to light the whole place up. He performed too. It was good. Great, actually. The crowd was so hype it was amazing. Not only that, but there were so many people. Like, it took me 5 whole minutes to get to the bathroom; I could see the bathroom from across the room. Wow.

Next thing I knew, it was 4am and time to get back home. Thankfully I wasn’t driving. Most of the Hennesy somehow managed to involuntarily find its way down my esophagus, through the stomach walls into the bloodstream and consequently into my brain where it tricked my hypothalamus into influencing me to believe that I was king of the world and that I should just let myself go. And go I did - I was asleep 2 seconds after getting back into the truck. All too soon I was at the house and somehow managed to drag myself to the bed. I was too far gone to get into bed so I lay on top of it, Tims and all.

The rest of the weekend blew by. Let’s just say I was hurting the next couple of days. Henny is no joke, people. It’ll grow hair on your chest. It’ll make you hurl last week’s spinach. It will make you part of the bedroom furniture – affixed to the bed. It’ll make you not wanna touch any alcohol ever again – till the next day anyway. Grown people stuff it is, that Henny.

Be sure to get to the D.C. area next year. More importantly, get to Howard University in this lifetime. I guarantee it’ll be memorable. See you in the VIP. Maybe J-Dub can spot me next time too, ha ha!

THORN IN THE BACKSIDE

If I hadn’t mentioned it, I’m African. Kenyan to be exact. By some strange twist of fate I found myself in this.... this melting pot. That’s all well and good and everything but there are some things we as foreigners should know from the get-go that no one tells us about. They just tell you about the really important things and leave you ass-out to find out for yourself the other things.

For instance, a couple of weeks after touching down in Philly when I first got here, I went to this public park. It was on a Saturday evening in the summer and the weather was great, so I decided to take a leisurely stroll around the park. My leisurely stroll turned out to be longer than I’d originally intended – or is it that the park turned out to be larger than I’d expected? Either way by the time I was getting back to the car it was pitch dark. I really didn’t have much to do so I rolled down the car’s windows, turned the radio on and sat on a nearby bench just chilling. Next thing I know these 2 cars drive slowly towards me and all of a sudden there is this mega-watt light that seems to illuminate my very soul – it was that bright. I surely thought I was going through a surreal experience – kinda like Paul when he was struck blind on the way to Damascus [Yes, I do know a little about the Good Book, O thee skeptics!] – if the white light hadn’t been accompanied by red and blue lights of lesser intensity. You guessed it – it was the boys in blue. I stood up resignedly squinting against the glare trying to see something – anything - when through some megaphone-like contraption I heard:

“Sir, let me see your hands!” I stretched them out towards the light. [I can be such a dumdum sometimes] “Put your hands above your head where I can see ‘em!” the Voice reprimanded. “Are you aware that no one should be at the park after dark?”
“No sir,” I responded.
“What’s that?”
“No sir,” I said, louder.
“Well, now you know. Get your ass out of here. Now.”
I didn’t need further encouragement and I spat gravel at him trying to get out of there.

But that’s what I’m saying, there’s lots of things we don’t know when we first get here. How was I to know about the park? And, who reads any of those signs all over the park that say things like ‘no alcohol and drugs’ or ‘pick your dog’s poop after he does his thing’ or ‘no hanging upside down on the basketball hoop?’ Some of these things are common sense but that being-in-the-park-at-night thing wasn’t. I mean, I wouldn’t very well go to the D.C. public park at night unless I had a death wish but this park was in the middle of Suburban Utopia.

Wow.

TRAFFIC COURT

If you’ve never been to court before I’ll tell you this – it’s a nerve-wracking experience. I don’t care how tough you think you might be but some serious $hit goes on in there. And I’m not talking about being on trial for serious offenses like murder or grand larceny or armed robbery, no. I’m talking about something that is relatively minor – traffic violations.

I don’t consider myself an expert of sorts when it comes to traffic court but I’ve been there a couple of times – or ten. For some of us who are borderline professionals with a heavy foot, you feel me. For those of you who just have a heavy foot, I know you feel me. Traffic court is an intricate game of Russian roulette with the cop and the judge standing side by side either ready to reward you greatly or to chop your balls off. More often than not I’ve come out the courtroom clutching my groin with blood dripping in between my fingers. Not literally of course, but you get the picture.

The last time I stood before the judge was nothing short of humiliating. I was all gung-ho while sitting on the bench waiting for my name to be called out thinking I would charm and cajole or sweet-talk my way out of it but the moment I got to the witness stand I could visualize the judge & the popo, in my mind’s eye, waiting with relish for that fateful moment when the machete swings toward its target or more realistically, when the gavel swings down. In any case, it was the realization that I’m a total bitch when it comes to the law that was devastating. My dumb ass should’ve realized that a long time ago but I hadn’t. I never wondered why my heart hammers in my chest when I see the boys in blue. I never wondered why every time I look in the rearview and see a flash of blue my hands tremble. I never wondered why at the office I feel my sphincters dilating when I pick up the phone and someone on the other end claims to be with the Fairfax County Police Department. [They’re my nemesis, by the way, responsible for 98% of all my traffic stops. Punks. I know I was speeding but damn!]

It doesn’t much improve my deteriorating relationship with the local authorities when I see them handcuff drivers and take them to jail for 30 days. How about those stopped for DUI who pay 1,500 dollars, lose their license for 6 months and serve 15 days in jail? How about those who are ordered to pay, out of their pockets, damages sustained when they keyed someone else’s car? Don’t get me wrong; I’m not even trying to justify these people’s actions – heck no. I’m just telling you all this so you can see that witnessing all these incidents gives me the willies when I get behind that stand. Anything can happen up in there.

For those who are blessed – or is it cursed? – with the need for speed, don’t worry that no one else understands why we do what we do. Why does Bush constantly use the word ‘strategery?’ Why are the smallest people the ones with the biggest voices? Why don’t the good-looking girls get any action? Why do the good-looking guys get all the action? Why does a dog lick its rear orifice then want to lick your face? Why do I like Gabrielle Union so much? Jadakiss, why?!

I guess I’ll have to keep driving fast! Bite me! Find me an attorney first though!

MISSION STATEMENT [or something like it]

Since this is a 'Performance First' blog, first things should be first. This is a photo of my daily driver. Not too shabby, I guess. It's one short step to the Nissan 350Z coming soon, God willing.

Not to say all I'll be talking about is cars and stuff, hell to the no, as Whitney Houston might say. This is about improving all aspects of life coz after all, virtually anything can be improved. Complacency is a terrible thing & I try to fight it everyday, as should you.