Combat Jack With Today's Mathematics

Funny. And true.

The new rumor to this never ending Chrihanna saga is that Tina Davis, Chris Brown's manager, allegedly had an affair with C. Breezy when dude was the tender age of 16. TMZ goes so far as to claim that as the "other woman", a three page text from Davis to Brown on the evening of the Grammy's set Rihanna off to the point where she ended up smacking, slapping and going buckwild on Brown, resulting in Brown "Chris Browning" Rihanna. Got that?

I know Tina. I met her back in the late '90's when she was a power exec at Def Jam. Even worked with her briefly. The pictures and clips don't really show how fine she is. Focused, strong willed, determined, beautiful chocolate skinted sister. Last time I saw her was at the MTV Music Awards down in Miami, like 4 years ago. She actually introduced Chris to me and wifey as her new artist. Before he blew up. He was hella smiles, so I'm guessing he was blowing her backs out. She turns 40 this month. Older women everywhere are realizing that tapping into that fountain of youth is a great thing. Gotta start going back to yoga, just to get limberer and fresher looking, especially since wifey's been really stank to me of late. Hope she's not "Tina Davising" me.

Kinda mad that older chicks didn't take unlawful advantage of me when I was 16. I had mad youth to share back then. Kinda jealous at Chris as well. Hittin Tina AND Ri Ri? Effin light skinted kneegrow. Like I tell my kids, "life's not fair"! My advice to my younger readers, get that whilst you can yung dunny's. Let them older broads take all that unlawful advantage out on you. But keep that on the low though.

Felt lazy like shit today, so didn't really feel like posting jack, even though it's the celebrated death day of Christopher Wallace p/k/a Biggie Smalls p/k/a The Notorious B.I.G. p/k/a Frank White, the G.O.A.T. of this rap shit. Realized I had too many memories of B.I.G. to let the day pass, so I'm dropping this piece. It was '95, and our client producers Ron "Amen Ra" Lawrence, Deric "D. Dot" Angeletie and Nashiem Myrick were on fiyah producing mad heat for the Bad Boy camp as part of Diddy's "Hitmen" production crew. Add my homie and friend Clark Kent who ruled with "Brooklyn's Finest" feat. B.I.G. and Jay-Z and my movement was unstoppable. My firm was making so much dough off them times. Life was very very bueno.

One day, one'a Puff's assistants called up my office. Bad Boy had just given their blessings for B.I.G. to be featured in a St. Ides commercial. They knew my wife, who was then an up and coming actress, was a dime + and they wanted to know if she'd be down to play B.I.G.'s "love interest" in the commercial. I was no stranger to the crooked letter I brew as a consumer, shit we all drank 40'oz like it was Vitamin Waters. My wife and I talked about it. At the time, being a young gunning music attorney with a client roster hotter than heat, I thought it might not be a good look for wifey to be all up in dude's commercial as a video hoe shilling malt liquor. Don't get me wrong, B.I.G. was most definitely a staple in the soundtrack to our lives, dude was incredible and had a tight hold on any and everything being played in NYC. Plus, I thought EVERY St. Ides commercial released was just dope. I just thought it might not be a good look. Wifey agreed, and she passed on the opportunity. The video dropped, we thought nothing of it and kept it moving.

Two years later, Big Poppa was brutally murdered, taken away from us way too fucking early. When I look at the above video, B.I.G.'s love interest being a poor imitation of wifey, I sometimes think "how effin cool would it have been for Mrs. CJ to be captured eternally on film with The King Of New York?" We laugh about it, and of course, there's no regrets. But she'd have another reason to pop her bad ass collar.

Fuck the killers and the bullshit corrupt cops that negligently fumbled the follow up investigation to B.I.G.'s death. You still the best Chris, these corney ass cRappers ain't got shit on you homie.

R.I.P.

NO SPOILERS!

Today wifey, me and the homie Fritz decided to play hookie in order to catch the 10am viewing of Watchmen at the IMAX Lincoln Center screen. We got there at 9:28am and the place was effin packed. I guess there was a whole lotta hookie going on. Not going deep into what the story is about, only because you can get that shit anywhere these days, but Watchmen was originally published by DC Comics as a twelve-issue comic book limited series written by Alan Moore, drawn by Dave Gibbons and colored by John Higgins. The series was published in single issues format during 1986 and 1987. The story was basically a deconstruction of the whole super-hero mythos and very much captured the pre-apocalyptic tension that permeated New York City during the 1980's. When that shit dropped, no one reading it knew where the fuck the book was taking them, but they knew it was a ride the medium of comic books had never taken them on before. Dense with both pop and classic literature references, Watchmen was multi-layered in story, structure and theme. The story was mad philosophical with regard to what being a super-hero really meant and went in deep with topics ranging from war, murder, rape, child abuse, prostitution and euthanasia on a genocidal level. To say Watchmen was, and remains to this day, the best piece of work captured in comic form is an understatement. It's the "Citizen Kane" of graphic novels, bar none. Even in describing what the book is about, what the experience of reading it is all about, I am not doing it any justice. I can only, and once again, strongly suggest to all of you out there who have never read it to please sincerely take the initiative to cop the book and do so. Your life in general will most definitely be enhanced.

















As hard as it is for me to explain what the Watchmen reading experience is, it's twice as hard for ANY FILMAKER to truly capture the full experience on film. Watchmen has been deemed "impossible" to make as a film. Zack Snyder of "300" fame does a pretty good fucking job at it though. Visually, the film hits all the notes, from costumes to grand background scenes to choreographed action sequences. This is the joint you most definitely cop a bag of shrooms to drop in order to capture the full visual experience. The IMAX screen adds to Snyder's visual A game. Being an '80's period piece that spans several decades (50's, 60's, 70's), post World War II New York, Viet Nam and even life on Mars never looked better. In addition, the characters as designed in the book are portrayed faithfully, virtually jumping off the pages. Rorshach, The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan (played by Billy Crudup and pimped out in CGI fashion) in particular make for some of the best book to film adaptations ever seen. Snyder also brings some of that slo-mo to quick fast visual magic that came off so well with his prior "300" joint. As a "super-hero" movie, the action is on point and mos def earns it's R rating. My kids were hating on the fact that we didn't bring them and I'm glad that we didn't. In addition to the major sex scene being soft pr0n worthy, the violence portions were well served and I got my fair share of blood splatter, bone breakage and blade cuttage. Wigs definitely got split and that is truly pun intended. The manliest of you will be giving up a wince and squirm here and there. Yes, I dare you.















Story and plot wise? Let me ask, how do you adapt the Bible into an action packed blockbuster for mass commercial consumption? Yeah, I dunno either. As much as Snyder tries to be as faithful as possible to the original, there's mad nuances and layers that are just not possible to capture on screen. At 2 hours and 40 minutes, the film is actually a well streamlined version of the original work but in no way comes close to capturing the full depth of the masterpiece that is the book. As much as I was amped to see more, at times, it was obvious to me that the piece was a bit too heavy in it's length. Philosophically, parts of the movie lumbered in the weight of it's depth, and as much as I loved every bit of it, there were moments where I was kinda bored.























All that said, what do I really think? As a fan of the Watchmen graphic novel, I always hoped that it would be made into a movie, even though deep inside, I wished it would never made into one only because I knew how virtually impossible it would be to fully capture all that is the Watchmen on film. However, if there was ever a film version of Watchmen that I would want to see, this joint is definitely it. The movie definitely earns an A for effort and a B for delivery. Don't get me wrong, I will definitely be seeing this again, next time hopefully in full altered state. I even see Blu-ray addage to my dvd collection. Snyder came to the table facing a lose lose situation and came out with a win-win/lose outcome. This isn't a date movie type of flick, more like the cerebral joint you and your nerdish type set might could build on on a weekend night. I will be seeing scenes of this film in my dreams as I sleep tonight.

I thoroughly endorse Watchmen the movie. There's nothing out there like this and I don't foresee anything like this in the distant future. In addition, I strongly urge that you Watchmen virgins cop that graphic novel and STUDY it like math. Just cause I said so and also because you will be broadening your horizons.






















In the end though, The Dark Knight > Watchmen.

Tomorrow. 10am. IMAX. Lincoln Center. Official Combat Jack review soon to follow.

My boy Dave is Jewish. He's married to one of our friends who is Black. Dave is so effin' cool that sometimes I forget he's not Black, so much so that sometimes I let fly the n word in his presence, which I really hate to do around white. Dave's not rich rich but he's got immediate access to a couple'a hundred thousand dollar stacks on account of him being a trust fund baby. Dave also had some issues with the law years ago on account of him always loving Black chicks. Even though he grew up in a mansion like home in Rhode Island, he always hung out in the projects chasing hood rat chicks. Eventually he started doing ghetto ass project like things which eventually landed him a brief stint in jail. Dave's real cool now though, great career, big ass house, three kids. He even has his mug shot picture framed in his living room on some look how cool and bad ass I was back in the day. I'll admit, that shit actually does look cool.

So last year, while driving my wife's car, we were stopped by cops. Apparently, I had a busted head light. The cop was nice enough to let me off with a warning. Problem was, Dave still hates cops, but not like how Blacks hate cops. See, Blacks hate cops because they know one wrong move and cops will have their ass laid the eff out. Dave hates cops in that, since he's a taxpaying citizen, he views them as his employees, and like boss to employee, feels like he can reprimand them at will. Anyways, Dave gets real pissed off at the cop cause he feels like the cop is wasting his time and ours and starts going the eff off on him with a bunch of "Fuckoutta here's", "our effin taxes at work" and "Go find the real criminals". Being that I'm at the wheel and also happen to be Black, my shit is sitting upright and still like a mannequin. I'm too old to get dragged out into the middle of the street and whupped on by night club wielding cops eager to put a knicca in check. Just like a Dave Chappelle skit, Dave goes off on the cops for like 5 minutes and eventually the cop says "have a nice evening sir" and bounces. Afterwards, after I get over my amazement at the cop's reaction and my anger at how I felt Dave's actions could have led into me getting stretched out, I cuss him out and warn his ass to never ever do that shit again whenever I'm in his presence.

I thought all Black knew this cardinal rule, but apparently, the Black chick in the clip above must've had a momentary lapse of judgment. That, or the cocaine she was sniffin' on earlier must've been hella raw. Regardless, the cops react accordingly leaving her ass all sorry whimpering, mumbly and laid out on the ground, sloppy thong showing and all.

Being that today is the actually date when the homie Crispus caught a bad one, in commemoration of CA Week, act like you know when in the presence of po po.