JayarJackson

1.                  Cell phone use is highly contagious.

While hanging out with a few friends over drinks and some dinner, one got a random text message on his phone.  As the seemingly rude response of him taking part in a possibly endless texting conversation ensued, I inexplicably felt the uncontrollable urge to pick up my phone that hadn’t given me a signal of a call or text.  I consciously fought the impulse for several minutes while ignoring the human contact of our other friend right in front of me, but eventually dove into reading old text messages and missed calls as if I wasn’t already aware of them. 

With two assholes sitting in silence and typing away on miniature computers in his face, our 3rd friend must have felt left out and alone, as he scooped up his Blackberry and randomly scrolled through communications he had also previously viewed.  In a matter of 5 minutes, the raucous conversation of the Lakers game and memories from the past disappeared and transitioned to the sound of baby clicks on our keyboards.  There we sat, 3 slaves to our phones and old text messages. 

Why do we need it??  Why does everyone seem to understand the necessity of being plugged in?  Even when someone steps a few feet away from the pull of their cell phone, everyone left feels responsible for notifying the newly released prisoner of his incoming call or text.  If there are 4 phones sitting on one table and one vibrates, someone will immediately yell, “HEY, YOUR PHONE!!!  YOU HAVE A TEXT…OR SOMETHING!”

Don’t judge, simply test it.  The next time you’re with a friend or two, pick up your cell phone and scroll away with incredible intent…I guarantee SOMEONE will feel the need to check in on their text messaging life that hasn’t progressed in the 10 minutes since they last took a hit from the technology crack pipe. 

 

2.                  Why do habitually late people set their clocks 5-10 minutes fast?

The next time you’re at a friend or family member’s house that is always late to everything, check the time on your own watch or cell phone before you take off to another timely meeting.  These people that are late to everything have been convinced that if they set their clocks 10 minutes ahead, that they will be tricked into leaving their house on time while thinking they are just lagging as usual. 

This flawed theory does not work.  The reason sluggish people don’t make dinner reservations, work appointments, or movie showings on time is because their brain tells them that a meeting at 6pm means leave at 6pm and there’s nothing anyone can tell them that will get them to do any differently.  If they knowingly set their clocks 10 minutes early, their irresponsible mind will only say, “you can leave at 6:10… remember, those clocks are 10 minutes fast.” 

Have you ever known a routinely late person that suddenly arrives on time to everything after discovering this new scheme of setting his/her clocks fast?  Hell no, they’re still always late to everything; so stop making people like me 20 minutes early when I trust your fraudulent timepiece. 

 

--JJJ

1.                  Old School Sitcoms seemed to have a mandatory “serious” episode every once in a while.

Being an insomniac gives me the unique opportunity to fade off to sleep in the company of Nick at Nite or TV Land, and wake up in time to experience the shift in programming to Spongebob Squarepants.  Nickelodeon must be the happiest channel on TV…wall to wall comedy for adults to adolescents.  So with my remote secured tightly to my chest nearly every night like the digital teddy bear it is, I’ve seen enough episodes to discover that our “classic” sitcoms seemed to have felt the responsibility of addressing important life lessons in the midst of humorous teenage plans gone awry. 

Right when you expect to see young Arnold and Willis deliver another catch phrase that somehow never got old, be sure to look out for the child molester at the bike shop looking to change the entire meaning of “Whatchu Talkin’ About?”  The Fresh Prince got shot in front of an ATM while trying to protect his cousin Carlton that he seemed to hate in the early episodes.  Steve Urkel got his punch spiked and nearly fell off of a high rise apartment rooftop simply because some bullies wanted to have some fun with alcohol. 

This stuff was taken as serious material when the original scenarios aired back in the day, so what happened to our beloved sitcom characters scaring us straight?  Maybe the writers and producers of these kinds of shows realized how uncomfortable their live studio audiences were.  With expectations for a good belly laugh, they got blindsided by stories of gun violence, inappropriate advances, and underage drinking.  Is this comedy or traumatic preparedness? 

 

2.                  When parents have twins, is it so mandatory for the kids’ names to rhyme that they’ll sometimes sacrifice one of their new children’s dignities?

We all know how it works.  When people have twin boys, they dress them up in identical cheesy blue sailor outfits.  Girls get the pink flowery dress treatment.  We expect them to say the same word in unison at all times while everyone gets a good, hearty, belly laugh in amazement that these two can “read each other’s minds.”  Hey, if Tia and Tamara of the old sitcom “Sister, Sister” can find each other after 14 years of never knowing each other existed, all twins MUST have a special bond. 

In order to put the finishing touches on irrationally making these two humans inseparable, many parents like to make their twins’ names rhyme.  Bill & Phil, Abby & Gabby, and John & Ron.  As if it wasn’t already enough of a hassle for parents to agree on one name for one baby, they have to argue over which rhyming names they will select.  I can always tell the lazy parents that found one good name they liked and simply made up another unheard of name to rhyme with the normal one.  While the new mother exclaims, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to name my son Roderick, after my father” a serious problem is encountered when Rod’s twin brother enters the world just minutes later.  Since mandatory rhyming can’t be violated, with a shrug and a wrinkled forehead, the parents invent Loderick as the natural choice for the poor little chump. 

Once Lod is old enough to realize that his name was simply a creation of convenience to accent his brother’s recognizable and well thought-out name, he should hold a grudge against his unimaginative parents and more popular brother who owns the name people can relate to.  

 

--JJJ

1.                  Young Black women think that driving is a race.

Everyone has heard of the stereotypes that come with certain races and genders regarding their driving skills.  The most common victims of our profiling are probably Asian women; they change lanes without looking, thinking they’re in the only car on the road.  Older Latinos tend to drive 55 mph in the fast lane on an open freeway.  Middle aged White women seem to have too many things to do other than press the accelerator when a stop light turns green.  Don’t worry; my beautiful Nubian sisters are high on the list of bad drivers as well.  As a matter of fact, their unmistakable characteristic of driving 65 mph in a 35 mph zone is runs rampant everyday. 

When you see a midsized, 4-door sedan swerving from the far left lane to the far right lane, simply to go around 2 people driving 10 mph over the speed limit, hold on tight to your steering wheel, don’t get macho and accelerate because you have 235 horsepower under the hood, just get the hell out of the way!  And when she hits you with the icy stare that says, “now I know you’re not flooring it,” just keep looking forward, this is one road fight you don’t want anything to do with.  Yes, that Nissan Altima, Chevy Malibu, Honda Accord, or Toyota Camry is being driven by a young Black woman with the heart of Jeff Gordon.  Give her that inside lane so she’ll stop drifting off of you. 

My experiences with three older sisters prove this point.  Yes, all of them are being exposed!  The oldest exceeds the freeway’s 65 mph speed limit on a U-turn onramp daily.  While riding with the 2nd oldest, she tailgated a poor older gentleman for ½ mile while yelling, “Why don’t you drive!”  When I noticed that the man with more life experience was already exceeding the 45 mph speed limit by 10, I had to tell her, “He’s already speeding!”  To that, she yelped, “oh,” snapped out of her uncontrollable NASCARness, and laid off the gas.  Last but not least, the youngest of my older sisters was pulled over for driving 110 mph while half of my family was in the car with her on a road trip to Arizona.  After the officer took her out of the car and explained to her that exceeding triple digits on the speedometer warrants an automatic arrest, she was allowed back into the driver’s seat with a simple ticket instead.  If it were me, I would have been in handcuffs with my mother asking, “Why are you taking my baby away?”  I was left assuming she simply told him, “C’mon, you know what’s up, I’m a 28 year old Black woman, I can’t help it!”

 

2.                  With so many retired numbers growing every year in pro sports, future players will soon have to wear numbers with 3 digits.

It even happens to players that are definite Hall of Famers of their sport, destined to be enshrined with their team’s jersey and number hanging in the rafters where they made history.  Once a number is retired for a sports team to honor the accomplishments of one player, no one else can ever wear the number again so that they won’t accidentally taint the illustrious memories it evokes.  No one can imagine another player for the Chicago Bulls wearing #23 now that Michael Jordan immortalized it.  Future Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal even had to change his original #32 to #34 when he joined the Los Angeles Lakers after Magic Johnson made so many memories donning the Lakers #32 jersey. 

So with so many numbers having to be avoided by young athletes making historic plays and careers in their different uniforms, I have to wonder when the numbers will run out.  Maybe when a few thousand years have passed, and numbers 00-99 are all used up, it will be normal to see Michael Jordan XL (40th) dunking while wearing #123. 


--JJJ

1.                  Don’t try to always call a good friend for entertainment value to pass otherwise boring time, they’ll eventually catch on, and might get offended.

As everyone in the country knows, LA traffic sucks.  “What the hell is that old lady thinking?”  “When are you gonna GO??”  “Damn, there’s an entire car length between that guy and the car in front of him, the gas pedal is on the right, fool!”  In order to avoid these uncontrollable outbursts of anger, I’ve discovered that many disgruntled LA drivers that are sick of listening to the same 5 songs on the radio have chosen to call and talk randomly with friends in order to pass the 2 hours it takes them to travel the 25 miles home in rush hour.  There is a reason that LA passed the law that restricts us from yapping on the phone without a hands free earpiece. 

Sure, we may come off as if we’re so important and handling so much business that we have to constantly talk while driving, but in reality, 9 times out of 10, that important looking person sitting on Interstate 405 in his Mercedes is talking to his best friend about the last episode of “24” or how much he hates his idiot bosses at work.  If you’re this “important person” that gets the bright idea to use your friend as absorption for your babble, make sure you try to mask it or else your calls will begin to get ignored. 

I soon found out that I was the court jester that kept a few friends entertained at one point in my life.  If they’d only attempted to hide their intentions a little better, I might have not started giving them the silent treatment. 

If the same person calls you every weekday at the same time of 5:15pm, and every conversation begins with the sound of a car’s seatbelt alarm beeping, you may want to reanalyze their affection.  When the conversation seems increasingly pointless and belabored, with uncalled for interruptions from your friend inexplicably yelling “get off my ass!” when they’re not talking to you, then they’re probably venting at the Range Rover driver that thinks tailgating will move traffic.  Once 2 hours has passed and their interest in your day immediately turns to “Ok, I’ll talk to you later,” you should understand that they’re happily home and the reason your ear is hot from a cell phone being smashed against it is that you’ve just been played.  Put on your clown hat and prepare new material for tomorrow’s drive home. 

 

2.                  The worst thing you can say about another person’s car is that “it gets you from point A to point B.” 

It seems that everyone wants to drive an impressive looking car, especially us men.  We know that it can draw attention and make us look better.  Maybe we can rev the engine, blast the stereo, and speed around a few turns just to get women to look.  Every time reliability enters the conversation, the seemingly complimentary gesture sounds more like an insult telling us how ugly it is. 

Ladies, if a guy is telling you all about his car and how it has multiple features, and has power-controlled this and that, don’t try to add to the attempted bragfest with the overused, “Well, as long at it gets you from Point A to Point B, that’s great!” 

Telling an overly car-conscious guy that his new ride simply gets him from point A to point B is like telling a woman that as long as her new dress covers her butt and her chest, it doesn’t really matter that that hotter girl with the better body is wearing the same one.


--JJJ

1.                  Guys are so irrationally freaky when it comes to their fantasies; we don’t realize that some of what we dream about making a reality is simply INCEST!

 Girls Gone Wild, a couple of female college roommates making out for the first time, Katy Perry’s song, “I Kissed a Girl.”  We fellas have an obsession with women hooking up for reasons beyond my understanding.  Although few like to admit it, most of us are illogically drawn to these displays of exhibitionism simply because we think that eventually, the girls will soon invite us in on the action.  Now, if these women are actually the lesbians that men drool over and are actually into each other, why would they want to invite a guy in on their intimacy?  When we’re hooking up with a girl we’re interested in, do our minds begin to think, “Hmm, this would be much better if another guy was nibbling on my ear.”  Despite the rare cases that this fantasy becomes a reality, we double our bet and think, “Wouldn’t it be even hotter if I hooked up with twins?” 

To that increasingly idiotic thought I realized that if this were to come true, we’d be witnessing and contributing to incest, or in this case, “twincest!”    

Why is it so hot to imagine jumping in the middle of a couple of Asian twins, but so nasty to think about a brother and sister hooking up?  Because the majority of my fellow man are helpless imbeciles, that’s why.  So before you try to talk a cute set of Swedish twins into illicit behavior, imagine kissing your twin brother. 

 

2.                  Looking for a roommate feels like an even more uncomfortable personal ad, trying to attract someone through cyber space. 

Living in the expensive city of Los Angeles almost always requires having a roommate unless you’ve hit the ground running with enough money to foot the bill yourself or you’re highly successful at an early age.  With so much relocating throughout the city amongst us young folks, roommates come and go with great regularity.  Now that my last roommate is moving out, I’ve found myself searching for a new roommate the random way.  While there are plenty of search tools like roommates.com and craigslist.org, the information we put out there about ourselves is probably very similar to something people put on match.com. 

As I wrote about my situation and what kind of place I’m offering to share, I couldn’t help but to try to sell myself as a great person, an excellent roommate that is positive, fun-loving, and sociable.  With the competition writing witty phrases about how they should be chosen, I felt obligated to convince all those strangers that I’m the best pick out of the thousands they might come across.  Pictures seem to help but so many questions arise: “Should I even include a picture?  And if I do, why am I including a picture?  What are they looking for when they see me?  Why am I even checking out what my potential new roommate looks like?  Wait, why is HE including a picture of himself?  As I stare at this dude online at work, do my co-workers think I’m perusing men online?  When I look at a picture of a potential female roommate, what am I looking for?  Cute, but not my style?  Maybe ugly so that if she drops her towel as I’m heading to the bathroom, there won’t be any awkwardness. 

Oh forget it, I’ll just pay the whole rent and not eat, I hear having the liberty of walking around in the nude is exhilarating! 



--JJJ

1.                  People waiting for the bus ALWAYS stand in the street!

  As all of you know, I live in LA, the city overflowing with people, especially on the streets.  The freeways, streets, and even residential areas are loaded with cars, so our environmentally conscious residents take the bus.  OK, these are the people without cars or else they’d contribute to the congestion the way I do.  Since most buses sit in the same traffic that all the cars do, people waiting for them get impatient and decide to lean into, step onto, and simply STAND in the street to see if their #20 bus is coming.  When several bus riders are there, it creates a competition to see who can balance on the edge of the curb the longest to check for the bus.  Since I am one of the “economical” drivers on the road that takes full advantage of the far right lane that many neglect, they run the risk of catching a chest full of my compact Ford. 

The last time I checked, buses are the biggest vehicles on the road.  Many of them are orange, red, or bright blue!  They are also the slowest moving vehicles on the road.  If these bus riders are abandoning the security of the bus stop canopy to lean back and forth in the street so that they won’t miss their bus coming, they don’t have to worry.  I don’t think anyone has ever said, “Damn, if I only stood in the street instead of at the huge bus stop, I would have seen that big, red, extra long bus with the accordion in the middle, before it passed me by at 15 mph.”

 

2.                  Those “Erasable” Pens NEVER worked!

  I remember back in 5th or 6th grade when right after the school banned slap bracelets from all us annoying kids that wouldn’t stop snapping them in class, we had to come up with a new gimmick that distracted us from math lessons.  Our answer came in the form of a pen that erased just like a pencil!!  All the rules from Mr. Moran about mathematicians writing in pencil only so that they can correct their mistakes went right out the window with those slap bracelets.  We were so clever, as soon as he caught the smart asses using a pen in MATH class, they’d simply show him the eraser, and rub those mistakes away!!  Once this phenomenon took hold, I noticed that my eraser didn’t seem to “erase” my mistakes.  In fact, it made my mistake a lighter colored one with a blue cloud surrounding it.  Since I was a neat freak when it came to my school work, I immediately threw that useless garbage erasable pen out and went back to my trusty mechanical pencil. 

To my surprise, seemingly everyone else continued to use those stupid pens!  I developed a complex and assumed I must be seeing something different than everyone else, so I kept my reality from everyone else with papers full of blue haze. 

Was I all alone in my observations?  When I returned my kick ball pitch asking for it to be “slow and smooth” was it already so?  Was the pizza the cafeteria served on Fridays actually nasty?  I got over it and eventually realized that deep down inside, you, me, and everyone else always knew that not only did those ink erasers not work, but the pens wrote spotty and lumpy.  Paper Mate got over on us!

 

--JJJ

1.                  Everyone puts their foot in their mouth at some point, so ignore the awkward silence of realizing you’ve done it and move on. 

I notice many things in people; styles of clothes, the way they walk, the looks on their faces.  I keep my thoughts and opinions to myself when I’m alone, but when I have a good friend or family member next to me and I’m in a comfort zone, I’m compelled to share these sometimes brutal truths. 

The next time you find yourself ready to point out someone with an annoying appearance, make sure your company doesn’t share that same look you’re ready to clown on.  So when you see the guy with the tribal tattoo around his bicep that doesn’t go all the way around the back of his arm, take a peek at your friend’s arm before regrettably spewing, “Look at that douche, if you’re going to get the most common tattoo in the world, at least be man enough to get it all the way around your arm!!  I’d never be friends with anyone like that!”  Your boy just might have the most awkward look on his face while trying to hide his half ass tribal symbol that he picked out of a tattoo book, next to a fortune teller shop on the strip of Venice Beach. 

When you and he are scrambling for something else to say to break the silence, just let it go and try to lie to him by saying his is different and you actually like it. 

 

2.                  Text messaging has taken over everyone’s life, (including mine) simply because it avoids having to talk longer than I’d like to or right at that time.  But…how do you know when to end a long texting conversation?

We don’t do it to look cool, especially since it doesn’t look cool.  We sometimes text message for the convenience and peace of mind from that dreaded 2-hour phone conversation with someone that is using you as a source of entertainment while driving home in traffic.  We’ve all looked at the caller ID and “damn, I don’t have time to talk to this fool for 2 hours straight!”  The saving grace from being a rude friend is to instantly text back, “What’s up?” with the hopes that they’ll assume you’re too busy to actually talk…like humans.  Now you’re still a good friend and your ear doesn’t have to get hot from the phone, making you wonder if you just pumped tons of radiation into your temple causing brain cancer in your future. 

But now that texting has gotten so popular, stress from texting etiquette seems to rear its ugly head, there’s no escape!  How do you know when to end a written conversation that has now taken up that hour you were just looking to save?  This is supposed to be quick and to the point, where did these super texters come from?  And now that you’ve responded to their first few messages, they pretty much know that you’re not as busy as you claimed to have been by ignoring that first call. 

You can give all the “wrap it up” signals you want in your texts, but a determined talker turned texter never catches the hints.  You try to not progress the conversation any longer with messages that elicit a response.  Some favorites to truncate the ramblings are, “haha” J or a simple “yeah” to a long winded story about an entire day of activities seem to never work.  Once I get these responses, I shut down my mini keyboard so I won’t be the nuisance I complain about. 

--JJJ

1.                  We’ve all heard of Beer Goggles, so do self beer goggles exist?

All of us adults know and understand the not-so-amazing phenomenon of beer goggles.  If you drink enough alcohol while out at a bar, the unattractive look decent and in some cases, hot!  The guys having a drought nab some woman to hook up with and women that have chosen their drought status give themselves enough of an excuse to end it.  Sure, it works for the objects of our affection, but don’t we take a look in the mirror every once in a while or at the end of nights out on the town?  Don’t we look a little extra sexy when we take a glance at ourselves in the middle of firmly placing beer goggles to distort our actual judgment in the cruel world? 

Try it the next time you’re out, party kids.  Your disheveled, unkempt look at the end of the evening just might look better than your sober preparation just a few hours before. 


2.                  Those Viagra commercials are so ethical; they always make a note to show that the couple is married.

I watch a lot of ESPN and therefore, see more Viagra and Cialis commercials than I can count.  Hmm, I wonder who their target audience is.  Anyway, I noticed that in every Viagra commercial I can think of, they blatantly sneak in a shot of a wedding ring on the woman’s hand, or a theme based on their marriage.  Does this help their image amongst men, 50 years old and up?  Without the proof that their catering to married men having trouble in the sack, their sales just might take a dive.  I don’t think we’ll be seeing one of these commercials showing a gray haired man taking off his wedding ring as he heads in to a bar to the tune of…”Viva Viagra!!” 

1.                  Pointless car horns are the biggest catalysts for an instant bad mood.

I was in a pretty good mood yesterday. I was driving down Olympic Blvd heading toward work, it was 80 degrees outside, my windows were down, and one of my favorite songs was on the radio.  As many know, the far right lane in LA doubles as the parking meter lane.  During certain rare times of the day, that lane has no cars parked in it and everyone is afraid to enter it since it’s not the norm.  That’s where you’ll see my ass passing all traffic and actually making the often proposed time of “it takes 20 minutes to get anywhere in LA.” 

So as I neared my final turn, a big old half van, half Winnebago quickly seized one of the meters in my lane that I enjoy taking advantage of everyone in.  This was completely legal and within his right to do, so I snuck back into the lane next to me that had a full car’s length of space between the two vehicles.  Since we were all stopped at the red light, this maneuver was all done at 2 mph and since my right turn was only 10 feet ahead, this maneuver also only hindered my fellow driver from getting to the red light sooner.  He didn’t even have to look at my “USC Alumni” rear license plate frame for any longer than 10 seconds as I was dipping right back out to make my turn.  (Los Angeles is littered with cars representing USC with license plate frames…we’re kind of upfront and sometimes obnoxious about it.)

So you can imagine my surprise when he blasts his loud horn directly into my open window where my head was contently boppin’ to my jam!  In this instant, this mild mannered young Black man forgot that Pharrell was entering the bridge and went into a hand flinging, “shut the hell up” tirade wishing he’d blow that horn again.  Smiles turned to frowns, what would have been polite head nods from driver to driver turned to mean mugs and I dare yous, and the sunlight didn’t seem to shine so brightly anymore. 

Still, 10 seconds after his horn was needlessly utilized and I was immediately back on my route, the radio magically came back on in my ears, that fool was a lost memory, and the sub-zero temperature in the look I gave him warmed back up to 80.  It’s a beautiful day in LA!!

 

2.                  Why do baseball managers wear baseball uniforms during games?

My Dodgers are in the NLCS after sweeping the cursed Chicago Cubs with a serious goat impediment.  Anyway, I’ve been getting into watching baseball more closely for the past 3-4 years and I finally noticed the odd practice of the managers of the teams, also known as coaches in other sports, wear a full baseball uniform, complete with baseball pants and a jersey donning their name and number on the back.  I can’t tell so far if they wear cleats or not. 

What the hell do they need all that on for?  They look absolutely silly.  Most of these guys are pretty damn old and decrepit looking.  Sure, they used to play the game back in the day, but time has since tap danced all over their athletic builds, leaving the body of a dude that definitely eats large portions.  Players have their numbers and sometimes names on their uniforms for identification purposes.  When a foul or penalty is called on a player in basketball or football, the referees assess the foul to the number.  Why is Joe Torre wearing #6?? 

Can you imagine if rickety old Phil Jackson coached the Lakers in some basketball shorts and tank top jersey?  What if Charlie Weis coached Notre Dame from the sidelines with tight ass gold Capri-like pants, shoulder pads covered by a jersey, and a helmet? 

This doesn’t make any sense.  Tell these baseball guys to put on some khakis and a polo with team logos…please.  Leave the past in the past. 

---JJJ