Charlie Weiss should be fired

I was in Chicago all last week, watching my nigga Jathan wed his beau, TeKoa. While there, I was accosted on several occassions by my nigga Sleezy from Oakland. He said if I don't quickly write something desparaging about Charlie Weiss and Notre Dame's double standard that he would hop on a red eye to Buff and "murder you, Blood." And he was serious. He meant me harm. His threat would usually be something like, "Yo, V, for real, Blood -- if you don't hurry up and write something about them busters in Indiana and how they givin' that nigga Charlie Weiss third and fourth chances...for real, Blood, why haven't you wrote something on that?! They ran Willingham off campus, but this nigga can go 0-26 and he gettin contract extensions??!!?!?!!!"

I feel you Sleez. And so here it is, in case anyone thought different:

CHARLIE WEISS SHOULD BE FIRED!

Sean Taylor and the Tuck Your Chain Epidemic

You heard about this football player, Sean Taylor? He was murdered in his home. Folks don't know if it was a blown robbery, a hit or what. This is the most recent of a string of criminal acts perpetrated on athletes. I write for SLAM, which is a basketball magazine, but felt like this Taylor situation was pervasive enough for an editorial on our website.

Here it is, check it.

Marbury's bout to start snitchin...

I wrote this SLAM piece last night on the Death of the NYC Point Guard. It was my initial reaction to this Knicks-Zeke-Marbury saga. But this was before I knew that Marbury was trying to F'n BLACKMAIL Isaiah into letting him start. This dude basically said, "If you don't start me, I'm snitchin'." This is the biggest b**ch move ever, specifically from a dude that reps the BK and acts like he's That Dude.

Zeke's reaction, however, makes me wonder. He's saying homo things like how "this happens every Novemeber and then we kiss and make up." (And he says it in that soft-whisper of a voice, with his arched eyebrows and that effeminate smile, which is half-hilarious, half-oft-putting). Now we all know Isaiah to be an egomaniac and incredibly proud, maybe even haughty. Yet, he went as far as to say that he welcomes Steph back to the team -- after Steph basically said, "If you don't start me, I'm droppin dimes on everything from the time I saw you and Anucha role playing by the pool and she was bare-chested wearing your trunks and you were rockin' her bikini. Or the time I you and Mr. Dolan bumpin and grindin to "My Humps" It's all comin out if you actually have the balls to start Mardy friggin Collins over me." After all that, Isaiah is gonna welcome him back?!

This sounds conspicuously like appeasement to me.

OR...

Isaiah is behaving like an understanding father. I think this is what I'm going with, because ALL SUMMER, STEPH WAS ACTING LIKE A CERTIFIED BREAD BASKET!!! Have you seen the youtube clips of the television appearances he was making during the summer? he was speaking, behaving and thinking like someone either on drugs, medication or just off his rocker. And I think Isaiah really feels for the dude and is trying to work this situation with some maturity and empathy. Let's not forget, this isn't the first time that Steph said he had dirt on someone and was gonna spill beans. he said that after the Larry brown season. On the final day of the season, as he cleared his locker, he told the reporters to come back in a month and he'd give everybody "the real story". This never happened. I'm sure he has dirt on Zeke, just like I'm sure Zeke and all his teammates have dirt on Steph. All of my close friends have dirt on me and vice-versa. This shouldn't be news. But I guarantee nothing comes out. This is a cry for attention and, you know what, i think Isaiah is handling this well. I wouldn't be taking this stance if I didn't think Steph is going insane. The other day one of my nigs watched a youtube clip of Steph losing his mind and after watching it, my dude said "I just think he needs a father." I actually agreed with that. Steph needs someone to help him regain his sanity, because he's acting beyond erratic these days.

I didn't ask for this Mulatto coffee

I was just coming back from grabbing a quick afternoon coffee at the café downstairs and two thing REALLY irritated me. First, I told the little El Salvodorian teenager behind the counter (you knew I had to get in a racial description) to put in "a very little bit of cream." I'm a black coffee dude, but in the afternoon, I treat it like a dessert and drink it with a little cream (enough to merely coat the bottom of the cup and slightly lighten the complexion of the coffee) and sugar (one packet). I always make this clear to people making my coffee, if I'm at one of the cafes that don't allow you to fix your coffee the way you'd like (most do). It's one of the reasons I typically don't go to those type of cafes, specifically for an afternoon cup.

But for some reason, I didn't feel like walking the extra block to Starbucks or Jadora and chose to go to this cafeteria style café downstairs from my building and ordered the aforementioned coffee with "a very little bit of cream." In essence, if the "barista" (and I use that term very liberally here) does things right, my coffee will be Kobe's complexion and not its usual Dwyane Wade shade. But this broad chose to dump half the quart of cream in my cup and slid me a Derek Jeter cup of coffee!!!! I WAS INCENSED.

The reason I was so angry is not just because this woman totally ignored my request (she may be a Salvo, but she spoke bueno 'glish, so there were no communication issues); but the real irritation is the tango that inevitably ensues after these kind of gaffes. That tango includes me asking the barista to please pour out a certain amount of ounces of the light-skin coffee and add some more regular coffee for pigment-purposes. Now, I have an incredible knack for eying how much of the light-skin coffee needs to be replaced with regular coffee in order to get my cup of joe to the right complexion. But the problem is that the baristas rarely listen to me…I mean, the reason we're doing this dance to begin with is because they very clearly intimated through their initial dismissal of my request that they're not really trying to work with me too tough. For this particular cup, I was sure that a 4 oz swap would take my cup from "Purple Rain" Prince to "Humpin Around" Bobby Brown and then I could just get the heck outta that amateur operation and get to sippin.

Except, homegirl didn't listen and we had to swap three whole times!!!!!!! Eff being difficult. There's no way a Grace-Jones sippin nig like me can pay for a cup o' Lena Horne and not feel like my very soul has been compromised. I take this bean bizness serious. Go ask somebody.

And of course this trash-café didn't have the sleeves for the cup, so as I walked back to the office my hand was getting scolded.

Scolded hands = frustration, but I'm still a gentleman at heart, so when I see an older woman rolling a briefcase (not a suitcase, but a briefcase), I still muster the Samaritan in me and hold open the door for this old bitty and her companion, who was rocking a natty three-piece suit and looked like Bill Nighy, Ian McKellan, or any other British transplant (Brits all look the same, just different shades of caramel-teeth). Both of these non-mute humans walked through the door and said absolutely nothing. No thank you. In fact, they didn't even muster a smile…not even a smirk! I was so livid that I even spit out one of those smarmy "Your welcome" at them, maybe guilting or shocking them into a guilty thank you -- to be honest, I'd have been happy with an exasperated, begrudging thank you. Nothing!

What are people thinking during these kind of pseudo-encounters?!!! Do I look like a door-man to you? Do I resemble a bell-hop in this track jacket and these jeans and chuck tayors, holding a coffee? This is obviously my job, right? I hold doors for old British broads and their beaus. That's what I do. And, in fact, I do this and do not expect even the most common and fundamental courtesy of eye contact, or maybe a smile, possibly a thank you.

Getting greased twice in 5 minutes is so very hard to process.