Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Remembering Coretta Scott King

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Common Scents




So, I’m standing in the shower lathering up my body tryna get clean first thing this morning right? I looked around and thought to myself “Maaaaaan… you gotta lotta Bath & Body Works stuff in here”. Truth be told, I have 4 total shower gels from Bath & Body Works. I’ve got Cool Citrus Basil, Grapefruit Jasmine, Rich Citrus Cream, and Mango Mandarin. Then I have 2 shower gels for 2 of the colognes that I use, Jean Paul Gaultier and Very Sexy for Men by VS. Aside from those, I’ve got two bars of olive oil soap and one bar of tea tree soap. I had to ask myself “Why do you have all of this stuff?”. Well, I’m a brotha that takes really good care of his skin. Furthermore, I like to smell good whenever I leave the crib. A lot of the shower gels I use blend well with the colognes that I use. The citrus based shower gels blend well with the Issey Miyake, Ralph Lauren Romance Silver, Dolce & Gabbana, & Jean Paul Gaultier colognes that I wear. I never step into the shower with any idea which shower gel that I’m gonna use. I tend to just get in the water, duck my head under the shower head, rinse and reach. Whichever one I grab, is usually the one I use. At that point I tend to have an idea of which cologne I’m gonna wear that day. Of course if I grab cologne based shower gels, it goes without saying that that’ll be the scent that I’ll wear that day. I have on occasion forgotten and splashed on Issey Miyake cologne after showering with Gaultier shower gel….lol. Now if I have to shave, then I’ll tend to sue a cologne that I have an after shave for. My ritual is to always spray cologne on my body as soon as I step dripping wet from the shower. Two pumps from the bottle is generally sufficient enough. I dry off and then sit on the bed for a minute… before applying cocoa butter or shea butter to my feet. The softening of the feet, now that’s a story for another day… ha ha.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Migraines

My head is killin' me!!!! I mean my head is really killin' me!!!! It's been a hell of a day, but there's no reason in the world for my temples to be pounding like this. It seems like every other day I'm getting more intense headaches. Normally I get them first thing in the morning though and not right before I go to bed. I've got this prescription Imitrex nasal spray that I use occasionally, but after using it I always have a bad aftertaste in my mouth and so I try to only use it when I feel the aura of a migraine coming. It rarely helps to take it once the headache itself has arrived. So I go to my main source of relief, Excedrin. I think I go through a bottle of 50 Excedrin pills in about 8-10 weeks. I usually take two, but tonight I think that I'mma take three of em cuz this one is a real painful one. If I don't take them then I'm not gonna be able to go to sleep til after 2am or so. it's hard enough trying to look at this computer monitor or even the TV for that matter.

I've been dealing with these stupid headaches since I was about 14 if I can recall. Over the course of almost 20 years I've been given more headache relief prescriptions than I can count. I used to think that the doctors were using me as a guinea pig for experimental migraine drugs. Hell, a lot of the meds that they gave me made the headaches worse. There were days when I wanted to walk back into the doctors office and curse em out. There is however one method that ALWAYS works no matter what. This method was told to me by a nurse at a hospital I once visited for headache problems. This method... putting your feet in ice cold water. Yes, it really works. Generally within 15 minutes of me grabbing a foot soak basin and filling it with ice water, I tend to feel much better and the tension is relieved. I suppose that the cold water gives the body some kinda shock or somethin', I dunno.

But tonight I can't be laying across the bed with my feet hanging over the edge in some cold water. I'mma have to try to grin and bear this one.

*pops a 'few' Excedrin pills*

Peace... and Good Night...........

Friday, January 13, 2006

Good Times Theme Song



does anybody really know what they were saying at the end of the song???

click to listen to the Good Times theme song


Good Times.
Any time you meet a payment. - Good Times.
Any time you need a friend. - Good Times.
Any time you’re out from under.
Not getting hassled, not getting hustled.
Keepin’ your head above water,
Making a wave when you can.

Temporary lay offs. - Good Times.
Easy credit rip offs. - Good Times.
Scratchin’ and surviving. - Good Times.
(what are they really saying here???) - Good Times.
Ain’t we lucky we got ‘em - Good Times.

is it???

Hangin' in a chow line
Hangin' in and jivin'
Hangin' and enjoyin'
Hangin' in a job line


I have no clue what they were saying. If you think you know, go ahead and drop your opinion.


-Good Times Episode Guide
-Good Times - Museum of Broadcast Communications
-Good Times Online Scrapbook

Thursday, January 05, 2006

20 Years Ago



20 years ago my brother, my sister and I took pictures at Olan Mills Portrait Studio. I was 13, my brother was 3 and my sister was 2. Now, going to Olan Mills wasn’t something that we had the option of doing, this is something that we had to do. It was all about getting dressed up, piling into the car and heading to the picture place to take the photos that can be put over the family fireplace. Now I know we’re not the only ones who had to do this. I’m sure that the name Olan Mills all by itself brings laughs and stories from a lotta folks out there. Back then people weren’t going to Sears, JC Penney, Walmart, or the Picture People to take their portraits. Back then EVERYBODY went to Olan Mills. Anyway, for Christmas this year we all decided that we needed to take a new picture for Ma (mom for you out there who like to speak properly). However, between all of us our schedules, we knew it would be nearly impossible to get to a studio to take a picture in time for Christmas. So baby brother had a bright idea. Why don’t we all just meet at a location and have pictures taken with his 35mm camera. Now, that sounded kinda cheesy to me, but at that point I figured it would probably be the best option. The question was, where would we go to take the photos??? After a short debate, we all agreed to meet at my house. Now that we had the location covered, we had to decide where in the house to take the pics. Well, I remembered that I had this 10 feet by 10 feet piece of black suede drape in my basement. It was something that a lot of hotels use for events and I had picked it up a few years back cuz the Hyatt hotel was throwing it away and I liked using pieces of it to buff my car when I waxed it. So in essence it was really about 8 feet by 10 feet once you subtract the pieces that I had cut, but anyway.

The Thursday night before Christmas we met at my house and the fun began. First off, my brother thought he’d just set up the camera on a tripod and set the camera to automatically take the pictures, but I protested against that idea. It didn’t make sense to me to do that cuz then we’d really have a bunch of pictures that looked messed up. So he decided to bring a friend along to take the pics of us. We neatly hung the black suede drape over the basement door and living room closet door to spread it out evenly along the wall. Then I grabbed a stool from the kitchen. For the next 10 minutes or so, we took turns sitting and posing in the chair while the other 2 would stand alongside. Then we all stood up and took pics, then we all sat down on the couch and took more pics. The whole experience was kinda fun. We had no clue how the pics would turn out, but were sure that at least one good pic had to come from the lot.

The next day my brother took the film to Costco to have it developed. I met him at the photo lab there that afternoon so that we could choose the best pic to enlarge and place in a frame for Ma. We decided upon one, but I saw two others that were really nice and decided to enlarge those also. Throughout the process of selecting the right photos I said to myself “I know my sister is not gonna like the ones we chose”. Not that they were bad, but she always seems to hate the ones that I always like. Anyway, on Christmas Eve my brother picked up the finished enlargements. He put the 8x10 photo in one frame and I put the 2 5x7 photos in the frames that I had bought. I spent Christmas morning going through all of the pics that all three of us had taken together and I put those photos in an album for Ma as well. I arranged them chronologically by date and there were probably 40 pics total that ended up in the book. It was kind of a pictorial history of the kids that I knew she would love.

When it was time to open the gifts, we all know that Ma was surprised to see the newest photos. I looked at her and said “You know that you’re sitting in the portrait studio right?” and my brother, sister and I just laughed. Anyway, I figured I’d take some of the outtakes from the photos we took and make an online collage. So, here's a few of em.

ALL SMILES


HAVIN' SOME FUN


SERIOUS


the rest of the pics can be viewed here... just click