RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS (Vol. 1, No. 13)

If you rode behind a truck which said "Follow me to your perfect paint color" on your way out of town, what would be your first set of thoughts?  Well, as I inadvertently followed this True Value tractor trailer on I-495 through the wonderful city of Wilmington, Delaware, my vivid imagination took a dark turn.  Instead of perhaps some jovial gentleman being armed with paintball gear and taking you to the time of your life--which I literally thought as I began typing this intro--it's some poor soul with an axe to grind with both his company as well as his wife who he believes is cheating on him because he's always on the road.  You decide to follow him without knowing his rig is actually a front for his paint bootlegging business.  He leads you down a secluded alley in a sketchy neighborhood to meet a few unsavory characters.  While the deal is going down, your inability to be incognito in life-or-death situations spells your demise as you are spotted by the truck driver.  He thinks it's a setup, pulls out a pistol and shoots in your direction.  If you didn't high tail it out of there like you were playing Need for Speed, then you would've found out the "perfect color" he was leading you to was crimson.  Moral of the story (and with my DIRECTV voice-over narrator swagger): don't follow anyone to your perfect paint color.  Get the Sherwin Williams app instead.  Now that you're creeped out, let's fly into some safer havens...

"Love Is a Commitment, Not a Feeling"...Says Who???

Much like my last "RANDOM THOUGHT ALERTS!!!", another one of those "deep" relationship memes floating around Facebook has struck a nerve with me.  In a picture grid in the particular meme in question, a man is massaging his woman's feet on the left side of the grid and a woman is returning the favor on the right side.  The caption above the grid reads, "Choose to love each other, even in those moments when you struggle to like each other."  To this point, I'm wholeheartedly with this sentiment because whether it's your significant other, your friends or those one or two or five family members you want to choke slam from time to time, you must willingly decide to love that person regardless.  However, here's where they lost me: "Love is a commitment, not a feeling".  Let me be clear: I strongly agree with the former part of the quote, but I'm utterly annoyed when people echo the latter because it belittles and dismisses human emotions.  So here are my questions: how do you get to the commitment of loving without the feeling that makes you want to love and commit, and doesn't love encompass both feelings and commitments?  Well, let's try to answer these burning inquiries from several perspectives, shall we...

Scribbler's Rave & Favorite Five: Ninetysomething Days of Summer, #3 Summer of '92

As I neared the conclusion of writing the third part of the "Ninetysomething Days of Summer" edition, I realized 1992 could've easily been higher on this list.  Although the summer of 1993 felt more like a coming-of-age season, the summer of '92 provided an ample foundation as it was the first all-around dope summer I ever experienced in twelve-years-and-75-cents of life.  However, perhaps the biggest snub on this countdown could've been enough to propel this summer higher on the list: Boomerang.  Now I could gush over how dope the soundtrack was--more on that later--but the movie was such a huge deal because of how much Black star power was involved between Eddie Murphy, Robin Givens, Halle Berry, Lela Rochon, Grace Jones, David Alan Grier, Martin Lawrence, Chris Rock, Tisha Campbell and the late, greats Eartha Kitt and Geoffrey Holder.  Not to mention that after much pleading, Big Dadi Scribbler took me to see it on opening day--although we  missed all of the previews (a moviegoer no-no) and narrowly made it in time.  Despite no movie of that summer making as much of a dent in my memory bank as Boomerang, it still has a hard time beating these five reasons pleading the case for the summer of '92...

Scribbler's Rave & Favorite Five: Ninetysomething Days of Summer, #4 Summer of '93

Considering how meh the first half of the year was, 1993 improved exponentially in the second half.  However, even with the ninth grade signaling a sea change in the social aspect of my academic career, no season was more enjoyable than the summer.  Although it resembled the summer of '87 with good weather and great music--despite nothing holding a candle to The System's "Don't Disturb This Groove"--the 94 days of the summer of '93 involved more advancement of my strongest academic talents in fun and engaging ways, great field trips, pretty girls and exploration of my wacky teenage hormones.  So to all of y'all who absolutely love the 90s, get ready to take a trip down memory lane as we get into my No. 4 favorite summer of all time and the five things that made the summer of '93 so dope...

In Heavy Rotation: January 2016

If it hasn't been abundantly clear by now, I kinda sorta have a teeny weeny bit of a love affair with music.  Unfortunately, I was on somewhat of a personal protest as I have neither wanted to make music of my own nor listen to any music--especially mine.  However, Madden NFL 16 has been my biggest guilty pleasure as of late and it's hard to avoid music when you hear the same songs repeatedly while assembling your Madden Ultimate Team.  (SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT: username is LateBloomer928 if you want that work on PS3.  I'm top flight aight, son.)  Combine that with the awesomeness of the SoundHound app and I've been looking up many of these artists in between snaps and at least coming around to listening more and sulking less.  Because I love to share what's been catching my ear just as much as I love to listen, I have decided to birth a new monthly posting series to do just that.  Some stuff I've been hip to for days, weeks, months and years, while other things might have you saying, "Bruh...is Jimmy Hoffa under that same rock with you?"  Either way, you'll have an idea of what the soundtrack for my life is--well, at least for that month.