October 2007

So my tour or shows rather take me to Richmond, Virginia for the second time. The first time here so uneventful, I purposely blocked out the entire trip other than my family driving up from Charlotte to see me perform. My first trip I was new to Myspace and all the glory it can bring. I went to different pages emailing and inviting people out to the shows, as usual no one showed up. I don’t know what Dane Cook was saying to get people to come out, but my shit isn’t working.

This time around I took a train from New York to DC and had a friend come scoop me and drive me the rest of the way to Richmond. This came about because I missed the train that would have gotten me in Richmond at 5:30, the next train wouldn’t have gotten me in there until 9:00pm and the show started at 7:30. So that was my only option. Just another causality of the road. All this because the comedy clubs don’t believe the opening acts are worth paying for their travel. They would much rather pay a local comic lesser money to tap dance. I will be placing this well known fact in every journal so get use to it. So every show you see me at, it’s on my own dime ladies and gentlemen.

The train from DC got me in at 4:30pm, got off the train, made a dash for the car and hit the highway. For those who don’t know about the DC area, traffic is no joke getting in or out of the city. Everyone comes to DC for work and leaves at the end of the day, not healthy to live right in the middle of political bullshit I suppose.

I arrived at the club with fifteen minutes to spare. I had enough time to get my travel kit out my bag, wash up, trim my face, spray cologne over my travel odor, change shirts, drink a red bull, teach the host how to pronounce my name and take a piss. Performed, spoke to some people after a show, got the key for the infamous comedy condo, surveyed the place, and decided to sleep on the couch after further review. The COMEDY CONDO for those who don’t know, is a place where the comedy club houses the host, the feature, and one night headliners that they don’t feel deserve a hotel room for the evening. The COMEDY CONDO, is well lived in by comedians who have stayed in it over the years. However this condo was fairly new, only two months lived in. Due to the fact the owner was the manager of the club and he mysteriously relocated and moved out all of a sudden, real Tom Cruise in “The Firm” type shit.
I wake up the next morning and I make a point to see Richmond, whatever there is to see I want to see it. I never get to do radio with the headliner too often; it really depends on who I’m working with. Out of all the people I’ve worked with Tony Rock, is the only person who considers the host, and the feature to as important to the show as he is. That I do appreciate and learned from him, thanks Tone. Richmond, VA, the gateway to the south, it must be. The first slaves were brought to Virginia, so it’s kind of understandable the behavior of the people in that area. Some of them are aware of the rich horrific history and heritage of the place, and some of them are as clueless as the slaves that were brought there. But that doesn’t apply to just Richmond, because there are black people all over that are unaware of their history. It’s just really disappointing because Virginia was the hub or rather the distribution center for slaves in America. Kind of like BMG, buy one slave for a penny get twelve free.
I went to the slave docks where they dropped slaves off, I walked the actual slave trails that were used to transport slaves that were chained at the neck and feet at night so they didn’t offend white people during the day with their sores and stench, from the ships to the downtown holding sells for auction. When I walked that trail it sent something through me that I will never ever be able to shake. We really take life and the opportunities for granted as black people. Not all of us, but enough that matters.

I worked with Paul Mooney as usual. Now I have race material, some laughable and some that makes you think, but it’s all funny. I try not to go too hard when I perform about race, for one I’m not famous enough for people to give a fuck yet and the other reason is Paul, does such a wonderful job of letting every race have it, I’m pretty much the salad before the meal. Now it’s normal for white people to walk out on Paul’s act, because he really lets them have it. But it’s a little disturbing when black people walk out feeling offended by what he’s saying. I truly don’t get. But I understand to a certain degree. We’re in Richmond, VA, home of slavery. It’s the “WE SICK BOSS” disease, and there is no known cure. And it’s not just in Richmond. But I suppose the ghost, spirits and presences of old slave masters and oppressors are looming about. Some blacks feel like if we don’t rock the boat and walk on egg shells, and pretend it never happen, and don’t be causing no trouble. Everything will be o’tay. I suppose that’s the mentality of the people. I studied the city and talked to the people, just so I can get an idea of what I was dealing with. I’m not crazy by any means. I know what I encountered. First off there is no major sports teams in the area other than in nearby DC. Its home of tobacco, drugs are heavy there, and crime is high. That don’t mean you tap out and accept what’s around you. I hate when people accept what’s given to them. That’s such bullshit. Prime example, a US Airways woman in the Richmond airport could not assist me, and I don’t know if it’s because she was just released from slavery, but you would think if you are wearing dreads, it’s because you are tad bit conscience or somewhat positive, or at least do poetry. Not this chick. She got some rules from her boss and was not going to believe anything else other than what he said. I could have choked her with her braids. Bob Marley would have been so disappointed in her. A waste of not combing your hair for a long ass time if you ask me.

Above all the shows were packed, I hung out with old high school friends, my family came up once again and the comedy condos AC and heat wasn’t working the entire time. So the first two nights it was hot, I slept with doors and windows open trying to stay cool and fight bug bites, then the rest of the time there I slept with the stove on and open, because it was cold. It’s a part of the game. I didn’t sell shit, although people did ask me did I have a CD or DVD. I really have to comply something and push product. This is just an abbreviated version of what will be in the book. Too much to fucking write right now. See you in the next city. And see you next year Richmond.

“One day it’ll all make sense”

If you are black or darker than khaki, no matter what you do please don’t reach, New York police will gun you down, handcuff you and still give you a ticket. I don’t care if the president of the United States was calling you to pardon your mother from the death sentence, let her ass die. Because if you reach for your phone to take the call you will be joining her moments later and you two can talk all about it in the afterlife. You think I may be joking, but I’m dead serious like the people who fall victim to the ones who are hired to serve and protect us. I wonder would we be better off if we just paid criminals to not be criminals simple as that. The only real difference would be they wouldn’t have on uniforms like the ones we hire each day. The criminals would be independent contractors and pay taxes at the end of the year. It takes a lot to rattle me, but the other night as I was leaving one of my favorite comedy spots called The Comedy Cellar, located in the west village of Manhattan, I hopped on the D train uptown to the Bronx. So I’m on a car that had maybe a total of seven people in it. As we approached 34^th street stop the train came to a stop and was delayed. So I propped my feet up in an empty seat so I could rest them until the train decided to proceed. Moments later I get summoned off the train by NYPD. The first thing that came to my mind, I know I’m not being profiled against as a terrorist. Do I look like I have street credit out here to get a bomb, I know I need a haircut but damn, give a brother time to get to the barbershop. So as I’m seating waiting for an answer as to why I was pulled of the train, I become very annoyed. It’s late, it’s cold and the rats in the subway need their time alone to play. You would be annoyed to if you were trying to get home at three am in the morning and your journey was interrupted by New York’s finest. So when the cop comes over I immediately ask why I was pulled off and he gave me his I’m macho, super underpaid I’ll beat the shit out of you attitude. I let the sarcastic side of me lose and pretty much tried to push every button on this cop without getting shot. And boy did we get into it big time. I told him I was in fear of my safety and I called him out on the shooting of the eighteen year old, boy why did I do that. This cop steps back, takes a moment to himself and proceeds to put on gloves like he was a mafia hitman. I just knew I was about to be erased from the census report of life. He tells me that I was pulled off the train for resting my feet. Threatens to take my ID and throw me in jail, after he’s beat the shit out of me. I laughed and said you have to be kidding me right. You didn’t pull me off that train for being relaxed. I would have been more comfortable if he had said, it was National Pull a Random Nigger Off the Train Day and I was random. That would have been more acceptable than telling me that a person in the city that never sleeps, can’t take a moment to rest because it’s against the law. Do you realize how hard it is to let down your guard for a moment in New York, only to find out it’s against the law to do so? What’s next you can’t drive home from a restaurant on a full stomach? I hear cops now saying “how dare you get full, take a food with you and drive home happy? Now I need for you to reach for that doggy bag so we can shoot you.”

And they say New York City………….

“one day it’ll all make sense”

Below is the article about a eighteen year man shot to death because he was holding his hairbrush.

Man, 18, Is Fatally Shot by Police in Brooklyn

By BRUCE LAMBERT

A young man was fatally shot last night in a hail of 20 bullets fired by five police officers who responded to his mother’s 911 call for help in a domestic dispute in Brooklyn, the authorities said.

The police said they believed that the man, Khiel Coppin, 18, had a gun. But when the gunfire stopped, it turned out that he had been holding a hairbrush.

Officers went into the building at 590 Gates Avenue, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, about 7 p.m. The police said they were responding to a 911 call from the mother reporting domestic abuse and asking for help to “deal with this,” and that on the call a man was overheard threatening to kill her and claiming “I have a gun.”

One resident of the building, Andre Sanchez, 17, said that after the police arrived, he saw from the hallway through the open door of the apartment that the officers inside were talking to Mr. Coppin, who was in a bedroom and opening and closing that door as they spoke.

Mr. Coppin then climbed out a first-floor window and confronted more officers outside the building, and multiple shots were fired at him, bystanders said. Wounded, Mr. Coppin fell to the ground and was handcuffed, witnesses said. He was taken to Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, where he was pronounced dead, the police said.

It was unclear how many of the 20 shots hit Mr. Coppin, a law enforcement source said.

Mr. Coppin’s mother, whose name was not released, was among the people outside the building during the shooting. Earlier in the day, she had called a hospital psychiatric unit asking for urgent help in dealing with her son, the law enforcement official said. Psychiatric workers came, but Mr. Coppin was gone. After waiting two hours, the workers left, and later, Mr. Coppin returned.

Two bystanders who said they saw the shooting said that Mr. Coppin was not armed, but was carrying a hairbrush when he climbed out the window and that he dropped it when the firing began. The two witnesses also said they both heard one officer yelling for the shooting to stop.

According to the police, another witness described Mr. Coppin as concealing the hairbrush under his shirt, pointing it outward.

A restless crowd quickly gathered and grew to as many as 150, as some neighbors shouted protests against police brutality. “You need training — this is absurd!” one woman shouted out a window to the police. Another man pressed against a yellow crime-scene tape and said: “I’m not trying to start a riot. I’m just saying it’s not right.”

The site and surrounding blocks were cordoned off as dozens of police officers, detectives and community affairs officers arrived to investigate the shooting and control the crowd. Community leaders at the scene included City Councilman Albert Vann.

Witnesses and the police offered different details about how the shooting occurred.

Mr. Sanchez said that just before the shooting, he went outside and saw several officers there with guns drawn. Mr. Coppin approached the window, backed away, then returned and stood on the sill, Mr. Sanchez said. When an officer told him to get down, he jumped to the ground and started to go through a gate in the fence in front of the building, Mr. Sanchez said.

An officer told Mr. Coppin to put up his hands, and when he did he dropped the hairbrush and the shooting began, although one officer called out to stop the gunfire, Mr. Sanchez said.

Officers started chasing Mr. Sanchez and knocked him to the ground after, he said, he protested: “Why you got to shoot him like that, for nothing?”

A similar description of the shooting was given by Precious Blood, 16, who said she heard about 10 shots fired, most if not all by one officer. Another officer called out: “Stop, stop, stop shooting — he’s down,” she said, but the shooter kept firing, “like he was playing with a toy.”

The law enforcement official gave a different version of the encounter, saying that Mr. Coppin charged toward the officers and refused repeated orders to stop. The police said they were also exploring the possibility that Mr. Coppin was trying to prompt a shooting, a phenomenon known as “suicide by cop.”

Mr. Coppin’s mother was at the 79th Precinct station house last night and gave a statement to the police, they said.

The five officers who fired all passed Breathalyzer tests, the law enforcement officials said.

AND THEY SAY NEW YORK CITY!