“Preacher” by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillion is one of my favorite comic books ever.
For the past couple of years, the guy who brought “Daredevil” and “Ghost Rider” to the silver screen (two big pieces of donkey turd btw) was trying to get HBO to green light a series based on the series. He admits that he compromised a lot before with “Daredevil” and “Ghost Rider” , trying to appease the studio’s who wanted franchises and McDonald’s happy meal toys, and basically putting out an inferior product. He didn’t want Preacher to suffer the same fate, which would have been terrible, so big up’s for trying. HBO would have been perfect due to the graphic and controversial nature of the source material, but apparently the new head honcho of HBO said it was too graphic and controversial. So it is now a no-go.
Was this the same dude from HBO who canceled “The Wire” and made season 5 only 10 episodes? You suck dude. BTW, still haven’t caught up on Season 5 so no spoilers man. My bro already fucked it up for me a little bit. Remember “OZ”? Holy shit, that was a good controversial and graphic content show that was smart.
Also, can you believe it has been 7 years since Aaliyah passed away?
Since I can’t seem to organize my thoughts coherently due the stupid crazy nature of the way I live my life and the amount of shit I am involved with at any given time, here’s whats running through my gray matter at the moment. Basically recapping the last 3 weeks in no particular order.
1. Ahrjay and Kristine’s Wedding 08.08.08/Colin and Emalyn’s wedding 08.09.08
Relied on Serato Scratch Live for the first time for both weddings. Tech difficulties both nights. A few weeks later figured out that one turntable tone arm is slightly filthy, cutting off the signal from the record to the computer. More on that later.
A&K’s wedding ceremony was done at the Oakland City Recorder building, really really early in the morning. For me anyways. I got there at 8:45am or so with only about 4 hours of sleep the night before. I’ll insert pictures later. There were lots of folks there that morning because of the date being, and I quote, “the luckiest day” to marry. I hope so. Afterwards, I headed to Alameda an hour early to get coffee across the street from where the celebratory brunch was going down. While waiting, chopped it up with a Vietnam War Vet outside Starbucks. He said he loved the Philippines when he was there, inbetween training with the Igorots for jungle survival training before starting his tour. I purposefully didn’t ask what he loved about it, but he told me anyways. “The people.” he said. No mention of “love you long time” tales. Thank god.
After this Liezel and Pat showed up and we headed over to the buffet joint. Although it was buffet, my lack of appetite kept me from over-indulging. Then out of nowhere Ahrjay’s mom asked me to speak on behalf of Ahrjay and Kristine’s friends. Super impromptu, but fun. Tried out some new jokes on them that I was working on in relationship to relationships/marriage. Got some Ha-Ha’s.
Later that night, the big fun began at the reception in Jack London. I forget the name of the place at the moment, but it’s right there on 2nd St. near the theaters. And of course, I brought the whole sound system out and rocked out as the MC for the evening. Holy shit, that was a lot of fun. Plus I was twisted. Lot’s of free drinks. Mike Marshall performed a 45 minute set. If you don’t know, he’s the dude who sings, “I Got 5 On It” on the Luniz’ song, “I Got 5 On It” and the “I Got 5 On It (remix)”. He was also the lead singer of the Timex Social Club. “Rumors” and “Thinkin ‘Bout Ya” anyone? Still don’t know who I’m talking about? I’ll let Mike let you know…
Mike Marshall – “Who Is He?”
We wrapped up things, and I broke my equipment down. As we were loading it up, three dudes from another club nearby walked by and one dude fucking just had to shoulder check someone from our party. We came really close to some bullshit happening, but luckily cooler heads prevailed. I remember drunkenly asking one of the Richmond dudes, “Yo, we’ll get our dude if you get yours.” Got home at 3:30am still drunk and not looking forward to the 8:00am wake up the next day for C&E’s wedding the next day.
C&E’s wedding was at the Brazilian Room at Tilden Park. Totally awesome wedding. For real. And I was hung-the-fuck-over MC-ing that joint.
Note that the reception for A&K’s wedding vs. C&E’s were two totally different animals. A&K’s was definitely more laid back. Meaning, nobody was really tripping if I dropped a few F-Bombs. Which I did. C&E’s however, I had to have the job interview persona in full effect. A few mamossas, and I was ok. But I totally screwed up one thing in particular, but it was hilarious.
Now, to preface, Emalyn handed me the most in-depth schedule on Thursday. Everything broken down in Microsoft Excel glory, down to the minute. Nothing left unexplained.
Colin’s uncle, Peter, was supposed to bless the food before the food was eaten.
Colin’s Uncle Peter’s name was on the gloriously in-depth Microsoft Excel spreadsheet schedule. Right where it says, “Colin’s Uncle Peter blesses food”.
Colin’s Uncle Peter walked up to me before he was to bless the food to introduce himself. He said, “Hi, I’m Colin’s Uncle Peter. I’m supposed to bless the food.”
I said, “Yes, it’s right here on the gloriously in-depth Microsoft Excel spreadsheet schedule I got from Emalyn. How are you doing, Peter? I’m Josef.”
As he walked away, I repeated his name a few times, since it was almost time for him to bless the food. “Peter. Peter. Peter…. Got it.”
When it came time for Colin’s Uncle Peter to bless the food, I announced, “Hey, everyone. Colin’s Uncle Roy is going to bless the food right now. Give it up for Colin’s Uncle Roy!”
Colin’s Uncle Peter – “Uh, it’s Peter.”
D’oh!
The rest of the reception went off great, except for the part where we went over the dance portion by like 15 minutes I guess, and the Brazilian Room lady tried to regulate on me.
Anyways. Both weddings made me real thankful that my close friends trusted me with handling some responsibilities on, “the most important day of their lives.” Not being sarcastic, but since A&K already got a bun in the oven, and Em and Colin seem to have that twinkle in they eyes, stork day is gonna soon take precedent. Something I totally want to post is the “Where Amazing Happens” vid that Mateo did for E&C. Holy shit, that was awesome.
So, with the reception over, I had a few hours before having to be at Azul in SF. So I went to my nephew’s bday party in San Leandro. Why is it when you want to rest thats when your niece’s and nephew’s want all your attention? I had to go into the jump castle and throw them all in the air down the slide. My nephew Victor James is older, but weighs nothing compared to his younger sister, Marley.
Totally forgot that I needed to bring a mic for the performances at Azul (C&E’s after party). Ran back home, then got super lost in SF for 25 minutes. Got there just in time to set up before the bridal party got there. Great performances and fun times spinning with Phatty.
Had to regulate on the guest’s a little bit for being disrespectful. Hope that wasn’t too out of pocket.
Pistahan 2008 – 08.10.08
So my friend Greg called me about 2 weeks prior asking me to take his spot doing a stand-up set for Pistahan. I told him yes. Then immediately realized why he probably didn’t want to do it.
-Family event
-During the day
-Outdoors
-Nobody drinking
Now I didn’t want to do it either. Especially knowing I’d be tired as shit after the two weddings. But I was too chicken shit to just say I didn’t want to do it.
I was told I should be there by 1pm on Sunday and that I had to have some release forms turned in by Wednesday. I didn’t turn those in and didn’t have time to work on my set, let alone try to practice it PG-13 due to prep for the weddings.
So I arrived to Pistahan at 3:30pm without the forms, hoping to god my timeslot passed already. No. I was right on time to go up.
Holy shit. That sucked.
Obviously I didn’t rock it. Some laughs, with an all family friendly set mind you. But a lot of stuff fell flat.
I mentioned, “Ok, that didn’t work.” and some lady in front was like, “Yeah, it didn’t.”
I wanted to say, “Yeah, your mom told me that last night, but I don’t listen to hookers. Especially when my c*** is in their mouth.” But, I was trying to keep it family. friendly. So after another pretty flat joke, I debated for a second to do “Ghetto-ass Trung Chan” but just said “Fuck it.” and walked off stage.
Aivy ran into the same problem with her set, (being hobbled by the event, not the heckler) but she dropped hella cuss words. That shit was funny.
Never again.
The lesson(s) of course is never think you know your shit enough to not practice, say what you don’t want to do, and when you fall off the horse, get back up.
Herb Diggs killed it though. Can’t go wrong with some songs, asking the crowd to sing-a-long.
