RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!! (Vol. 1, No. 4)

The easy part of doing "RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!!" is sifting through my brain to recall the most random thoughts and observations throughout the week or month that will tickle every one of you who actually entertain me.  However, the hard part is figuring out an interesting introductory paragraph, but like everything else about this series, things just happen by the grace of God and often out of nowhere.  Hence, we have a lovely Maryland license plate and I'm sure you're wondering what's the significance of it.  Well, here's a secret about me: I'm a numbers fanatic and looking at the back of license plates allows me to feed my fetish.  The game is simple: I take the bigger number, divide it by the smaller number and see if I can get a quotient without a remainder.  I cannot in this case, but the way that my brain is setup, I said to myself, "If that bigger number was 9045, then the quotient would be 1005."  I'll break it down even further by a number like 3, 5, or 15 and come up with further quotients like 335, 201 and 67, respectively--and this is all in my head.  Yup...been this much of a certified dork since 1987, but I bet you'll ask me to figure out the tip at dinner instead of wasting your time with a calculator.  Now when you start talking calculus, that's the only time in my life when I needed a tutor, so I might not be the guy you wanna talk to about that.  With that said, let's get random, kiddies and ducklings...

MAY I BUY A VOWEL?!?!  I'm often interested in the beginning of certain trends.  So I'm at the Bojangles drive-thru in New Carrollton for one of my morning fast food guilty pleasures, get to the window and see a sticker advertisement for a group called "Yng Lgnds" right underneath the window at eye level.  First and foremost, I'm thinking, "Although it's ji like soliciting on private property, it's actually not a bad marketing idea because people will always be forced to look at it."  Second, the sticker prompted me to listen to one of their songs via their Instragam page called "Inner City Blues" and it was actually pretty good.  (Good promo + good music = free pub.  Boom.)  Third, and more important to this conversation, I thought, "Who made leaving out vowels a thing?"  From L.A.-based-by-way-of-Jersey/Philly producer Knxwledge (Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak) to renowned R&B/pop star The Weeknd to microblogging/social networking site Tumblr, this seems to be the new style of setting one's self apart to build a brand.  Just searching Google for "Young Legends", there are tons of folks with that moniker, so the distinction is necessary because "Young Legends", "Knowledge", "The Weekend" and "Tumbler" would look ordinary and a little lame from a promotional standpoint.  Nevertheless, I still can't help but feel like there are a bunch of folks who either got their bright idea from the limited amount of space on license plates or couldn't find Vanna White when their eureka moment struck.  Then again, what does Drk Scrbblr know...

HAVE MUSTACHE, WILL TRAVEL.  So there's been a rise in popularity and an all-out love fest when it comes to us men and our beards.  It's not even just that the ladies adore a brother with facial hair, but even the fellas give you the head nod of approval or dap you up when your beard game is official.  However, on the June 6th episode of ABC's Live with Kelly, D.L. Hughley was a guest and my eyes quickly noticed that his goatee that was missing a key element: a mustache.  Immediately, I was deeply troubled and thought, "What's the point?"  In that instant, I recalled a conversation with one of my dear, dear friends about how men with mustache-less goatees look like "creepers".  Actors like Michael Ealy have been offenders of this unofficial status of the Worldwide Beard Gang Code, but because they've had such a significant following from the ladies, they've gotten passes--that and Ealy quickly got hip.  I'm just gonna say this about all of that...I once accidentally messed up my goatee and had to shave off all of my facial hair.  I felt so naked and although a few people told me that I looked younger, my face was saying, "So this is what L.A. Reid must've felt like the first time that he decided to go bare faced.  Me no likey."  Having the bushy, salt-and-pepper goatee that garners so much praise without a mustache just seems a morally bankrupt decision.  Some people can get away with a mustache and no other facial hair, but people like Hughley remind me of Smokey's Kool-Aid rant from Friday: "No sugar?  Damn.  Y'all ain't never got two things that match.  Either y'all got Kool-Aid, no sugar.  Peanut butter, no jelly.  Ham, no burger.  Daaamn."  (SIDEBAR: how did that quote not make the list on my Friday post?!?!  I'm slippin', y'all.)
  

AND THE AWARD FOR THE WORLD'S SLEEPIEST MEAL GOES TO...salads.  Now in defense of the poster child dish for healthy eating, allow me to say this: the Uptown from Potbelly Sandwich Shop is effing delicious.  They even had this particular vinaigrette that was an absolutely perfect combination to bring out the flavor of the salad even more, but for whatever reason, Corporate thought it was a good idea to discontinue it much to my chagrin.  Regardless, there is not even a nine-times-out-of-ten guarantee that I'll get my favorite salad in the whole wide world over a Grilled Chicken & Cheddar on flatbread for one simple reason: salads are boring.  Maybe it's the fact that there's so much cold leafage with which the slightly cooler accompaniments like tuna, grilled chicken, croutons, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, carrots, blue cheese, hard-boiled eggs or cucumbers must contend.  For a while, I tried to switch up the typical salad base of predominantly romaine lettuce with other greens like baby spinach, baby kale and arugula, but those made me snooze after a while and weren't as tasty.  It just comes down to the fact that I never get excited to make or buy a salad, even though there are so many variations to enjoy.  In fact, I've been to two weddings in the past month in which it was more or less self-serve at the reception, and whenever I saw the choice between cooked vegetables and salad, I always went with cooked vegetables.  Bottom line, I prefer my veggie-dominant dishes like I've always preferred intimacy: with heat, flavor and as little dressing as possible.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN...INTRODUCING MS. SHIRLEY JENKINS.  On a recent episode of NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, there was a lot of love for the Shirleys as Bishop Shirley Holloway was a guest panelist as well as the late, great Shirley Chisholm was a topic of discussion.  In that instance, I immediately thought how other than Laverne & Shirley and Shirley Temple, I can't recall meeting a White woman named "Shirley" in-person.  Every Shirley that I've ever met has been a Black woman, usually over the age of 50 and even in pop culture, the first Shirley that comes to mind is Shirley Hemphill playing...wait for it...Shirley Wilson from What's Happening.  Then I started thinking how I've never heard of or met a White person with the last name "Jenkins" either.  The irony is that the name clearly didn't come from us as it originated in Cornwall, England and became popular in Wales, but somehow, it's like Black folk secretly own the rights to it because there is no other last name that makes me think "this person must be Black" more than Jenkins.  Therefore, if you see the name "Shirley Jenkins" in passing and if you're anything like me, then I guarantee that the profile of the first woman that comes to mind won't look anything like Cindy Williams.  (So Who's Who of Random Dirk Scribbler Pictures?!?!  Why, none other than the Honorable Shirley Jenkins, Council Member for Ward 2 in Clinton, South Carolina.  If nothing else, she's donning the Shirley What's Happening bush.  Winning.)

So let's hear that randomness that you've been holding back for days, weeks, months and even years and go on and drop a comment!  (By the way, if you've been holding back random thoughts for years, then you need more friends.  Hello...I'm Friend!)  Don't forget to PLEASE come back soon for another wild edition of "RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!!"