Some guys stink, and some guys look like they stink even if they bathe and wash their hair on a daily basis. Don't be either guy. How does one go about combating this? Well, I'm here to help. Cologne is a very personal issue, and what one person likes another may hate. My advice to anyone trying to navigate the world of men's fragrances is to go to any high quality department store or dedicated perfume/cologne shop and make those beautiful and intimidating fragrance girls work for their money. You know, the ones want to crop dust you with the latest Calvin Klein cologne as you're walking past them on your way to the Nike and Adidas sportswear section.
Not every department store is considered equal. A Macy's in a strip mall in Jersey is not like the Macy's on 34th Street and Herald Square in Manhattan. The Manhattan location is world-renown and has many employees dedicated to cosmetics and perfumes/colognes right on the first floor. Go there or choose a comparable site and meticulously take your time. Under no circumstances should you go with a woman. This advice may seem counter-intuitive but the whole point to personal grooming is that you're doing it for yourself and not impress others. What one woman likes another may hate. You have to train yourself to choose a cologne for whichever occasion you need it.
For the time being I use Aqua Quorum. It is the sport edition of their regular men's cologne and is much lighter and breezier. I have gotten many compliments on this particular fragrance and have not yet ran into anyone that did not like it. I typically use this for all occasions, but I now realize that for more formal occasions something a bit more serious will be necessary. So go to a department store that has a wide selection and try out various colognes, and make sure you let the sales clerk know you are not interested in buying whatever latest fragrance-du-jour. It may take a while, but once you find the one you want you'll be set for the next few years at the very least(or until it's discontinued).
Keep in mind that there is no bigger rip-off in retail than men's cologne. They are so overpriced that it is not uncommon for you to find the exact same cologne for up to $25 cheaper online. Just do your homework, put in the requisite time and don't act as if you're in a hurry and you'll eventually find something you'll like spraying on every morning at a very reasonable price.
Gentlemen-put away that clunky, graceless oversize Diesel watch. If you wear one of these to go out, you need to stay indoors until you can come up with a better idea for what looks good on your wrist. And that G-Shock? If you need a watch this rugged, you are probably reading my blog from the mountains of Afghanistan, in which case I salute you for defending our country.
But if you're ready for something with style, elegance and grace, something that has an understated sense of confidence and sophistication, if you're ready for a time piece as opposed to just a watch, then you are ready to step up to Movado.
Yes, there are more expensive watches, with names only very wealthy assholes and collectors have ever heard of. And you can pay a lot more money for a much uglier watch. But the sleek, classic lines of many of Movados' lines speak to their timelessness. You will never be out of style or out of the conversation with one of these on your wrist.
Whether you prefer the elegance of their leather band "Museum" edition or one of their various all-stainless steel sport editions, you will find a Movado for every occasion. There are morons who believe telling people at social gatherings that their $15,000 piece-of-garbage that no one has ever heard of was meticulously manufactured by Swiss midgets who yodel in the Alps on their days off and cross-country ski to work every day, but a Movado lets people know that you know elegance when you see it. And so will they, because when you wear one you become elegance personified. And that is something no one needs to be told. One can tell simply by asking the time.
Let's face it, guys-we have no idea what women want. And since they keep changing the goalposts whenever we think we're getting close, it's useless to even try. The trick is to know what you want for yourself and not give a damn who likes it or who doesn't. You'd be surprised how many women find this attitude refreshing and attractive. Unfortunately this revelation comes at a cost-but you can minimize the amount you pay in emotional distress and utter confusion by taking a page right out of MTV's smash hit reality show "Jersey Shore".
The key is to channel your inner "Guido", and there is no one better to help us navigate the pitfalls of this demanding yet utterly necessary and vital journey than Rhode Island's very own Paul "DJ Pauly D" Delvecchio. This cat made a name for himself as the smooth-talking ladies man who never lost his cool under any circumstances and more importantly, never had a hair out of place, whether it was at the gym, the tanning salon or the club with the other cast members of the show fist-pumping to some truly unfortunate House music.
Here is Pauly D "hooking up" with yet another flirtatious and attractive hoochie mama-
We'll start with the hair-why? I'm sick and tired of the forced labor camp look I see most guys sporting. It's official-the ceasar haircut is played out. Nothing says "I give up" more than a badly shanked, chopped-up version of a terrible haircut masquerading as a lower-case baldy that you did yourself in your bathroom with a $20 Norelco beard trimmer. If you want to go bald, be a man and do it all the way with the proper tools-a Schick Select razor, some shaving cream and a bottle of rubbing alcohol to slap on your dome when you're done. If you can withstand that type of pain, you can rock a baldy with style. Most of you out there cannot, so why not try something different?
Here are the products you will need to pull this look off-
1) Joico ICE Spiker Glue.
2) Got2b Glued Plastering Freeze Spray.
3) Hair dryer.
4) Styling comb.
Don't waste your time experimenting with anything else. This combo works.
And if the problem is you're too cheap to get a proper trim at a barbershop, complete with a neatly-done hairline and a sideburns shape-up, then you might as well walk around with striped pajamas and install barbed wire around your windows, because that's what you look like walking out of your house with that stupid ceasar haircut-a fucking POW hitting the prison yard for morning roll call.
Here is a video to show you how it's done, son-
Next up-the tan. Many dermatologists say tanning machines cause cancer. You know what? Everything causes cancer. So how would you prefer getting it? Sitting in some bar every night drinking your life away pining for glory days past that only existed in your own head, or do you want to step up to the plate and start living? I would rather die looking good and having fun than waiting for my diseased liver to explode like a hand grenade.
Without a tan, the average guys' complexion varies between that of a dress mannequin and the cold slab of meat you'd find in any morgue refrigerator that was previously seen walking out of a bar rocking a caesar haircut before drunkenly stumbling into an oncoming bus.
You don't have to go overboard, just enough to give your skin a healthy glow. You'd be surprised what a difference it makes especially if you, like me, live in the northern part of the US where the winters are long and depressing. And this is coming from one of the whitest guys you'll ever run across.
I once had a dermatologist tell me that I should do myself a favor and get some sun every once in a while. She said this after I took my shirt off, and you could imagine the embarrassment I felt, as she was Irish and about as white as a 1920's film actress. Immediately I thought to myself, "If she's telling me I'm too pale, then something has GOT to be wrong!!!"
You can try www.beachbumtanning.com if you live in the New York City area. They have the best tanning beds and the best prices with locations all over the tri-state area. This is the only way to keep your tan up during those brutal Northeastern winter months. Why walk around looking all pasty-faced and anemic when with a little effort you can stand out from the crowd?
I've been told that taking an interest in your looks is gay, or metrosexual (which basically translates into the same thing). Well, Pauly D and his incredibly obnoxious roommate Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino got more ass than a toilet during the filming of "Jersey Shore" and continued to do so once they began doing paid personal appearances at clubs and awards ceremonies. You tell me who's gay-these guys who are out there scoring more than Lebron James or the random, anonymous asshole sitting at home in his basement watching them on TV calling them names, with the remote control in one hand and a big bag of Fritos Lays' corn chips in the other?
So remember guys, it's not important to imitate someone elses' style-it may not work for you. The key is to incorporate whatever you can from different sources and through trial and error develop a style all your own. And don't forget to beat that beat up next time you're out on the dance floor-you'll thank me later.
Mr. Untouchable Release date October 26, 2007. Running time 1 hour 31 minutes.
This documentary reveals the inner workings of the Harlem drug empire run by Leroy "Nicky" Barnes during the the 1970's. He was the leader of a group called "The Council", who controlled a heroin ring that was estimated to gross $72 million dollars annually at it's peak. Way before John Gotti, aka "The Teflon Don", Barnes' fame came from beating one rap after another, from murder to bribery and everything in between until he arrogantly posed for a picture in this Sunday New Times magazine article-
Approximately six months after this article appeared, he was sentenced to life in prison. Even though the evidence against him was weak, federal prosecutors had enough against him to convict him of conspiracy, and with the new Rockefeller drug laws on the books, he was basically done for. Or was he?
Things began to unravel for Barnes while in prison. According to Barnes, the other members of "The Council" were not taking care of his attorney fees and one of them, the flamboyant ladies' man Guy Fisher (the first black man to own the Apollo Theater in Harlem, whose nephew Corey Fisher currently plays point guard for the Villanova University Wildcats) was allegedly having an affair with one of Nicky's girlfriends.
This lead to Barnes contacting the state attorney generals' office with an offer to testify against the other members of "The Council". His testimony led to over 70 felony convictions and the total dismantling of the drug ring that he and the other members had started in the early 70's. By 1984 they were all behind bars. Frank James received life plus 40 years and Guy Fisher 25 to life without possibility of parole. He even testified against the mother of his own two children, who served 10 years because of his testimony. Now that's what you call a rat.
For his part, Barnes served 21 years of a possible life sentence and was released sometime in 1998. He has been in the Witness Protection Program ever since. The most astonishing aspect of this documentary is Barnes himself gets to tell the story from beginning to end, juxtaposed by interviews with several other key members of his inner circle from his heyday as Harlem's Heroin kingpin.
An excellent documentary and a definite a must-see.
I offer up my childhood crush Belinda Carlise as my "Babe of the Week". To me, she epitomized the ultimate Southern California white girl-blond hair, beautiful tan skin, cute as hell and curvy in the right places. She could pass for a typical all-American cheerleader, surfer girl, or a high school prom queen dating the captain of the football team.
As you can see from the video "Our Lips are Sealed", she had that healthy, tan glow about her and such an adorably cute smile-she definitely "loooks mahvelous, dahling-absolutely mahvelous!!!"
Your taste in white women may vary, but I don't go for the type that are sinewy, bone-skinny with thin lips. I messed with a girl like that and it was like making out with a pterodactyl. I'll take a chica with a bit of meat on her bones and a lively personality that comes from good living and not from a meth-amphetamine high any day of the week.
Don't get me wrong-I like my cinnamon-colored latina honeys, but if I ever, through the art of pimpnosis, hypnotize a white girl like this to get with me I will marry her. No questions asked.
Tony Kornheiser is the type of sportscaster who you love to hate, in a grating, wish-he-was-off-the-air type of way. He has an annoying, high-pitched screech when he rants (which is 80% of the time), his opinions are unoriginal and downright bogus, and he is disgusting to look at-
But those are not his worst attributes. He, along with co-anchor Michael Wilbon (who I actually enjoy on occasion) are guilty of some of the most egregious crimes a reporter can commit-
1) Loss of objectivity. These two guys have their favorite athletes/teams and slurp them without a hint of shame. The whole ESPN crew is guilty of this, and this bias colors their commentary to the point where one is left to wonder how they have the time to show up for work when it is painfully obvious they spend the majority of their waking moments with their heads completely up the asses of guys like Bret Favhre, Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods. Not only is this type of journalism intellectually lazy and a complete cop-out, it sucks the air out of the room. With so many other players to talk about, do we really need to hear how great Kobe Bryant is for the six-jillionth time? We get it already. How about talking about other players for a change?
2) Taking an obscene amount of pleasure in stating the obvious over and over again. We know Tiger Woods is great. We know Bryant and Lebron James are great. Constant repetition of this to an audience who is quite frankly sick of hearing it and would like to know how other players are impacting their respective sports is not only intellectually lazy, but it makes them nothing but fanboy shills and reduces their credibility as commentators to zero.
But Kornheiser didn't make "Busting Chops" for these daily transgressions, which are par for the course if you've ever seen him and Wilbon do their tired, grating shtick on ESPN's "Pardon The Interruption". He is here because he's been suspended for two weeks for negative comments made about fellow ESPN anchor Hannah Storm's wardrobe. No slave to fashion himself, he attacked this poor woman for her on-air attire as if he were a perennial GQ fashion plate. He eerily resembles a wart hog and dresses like a decrepit old man selling Florida timeshares to supplement his social security check. He wears outfits most old Jewish people would only be caught buried in. Here is the only youtube link I could find where you can hear the comments he made-
Micheal Wilbon went on the Scott Van Pelt show to stand up for his boy, saying that the problem is broadcasters have to be careful about what they say in this age of 24-hour media. WRONG, fat boy. The problem is Kornheiser thinks he's funny. He thinks he has to go on the air and make people laugh. But what passes for comedy on the sports airwaves is nothing but shrill banter by a bunch of jock-sniffing, half-dead wannabe's who resent pro athletes yet secretly want their dorky, lard-ass suburban kids to be just like them when they grow up.
I can deal with Kornheiser's two-week suspension because all that means is the viewers will get more of Dan Lebatard of the Miami Herald, another pompous, self-important jackass-but at least he plays off Wilbon quite well, playing the part of the doofus sportswriter no one really respects.
Michael Beasley
Michael "Be Easy" Beasley took offense at comments made by pompous blowhard Charles Barkley, who in effect stated that Dwayne Wade is Michael Jackson playing with a bunch of Titos, in reference to the gloved one's less talented brother.
Here is some advice for "Tito" Beasley-
1) Kill the tattoos and cornrows. The street cred thing is past tense and totally played out, brother-keep it moving towards something more positive. A young black man in the spotlight does not have to go "ghetto" to prove he hasn't sold out to "The Man". Besides, you never had any "street cred" so why are you faking the funk with this bullshit, now that you are a rich and famous professional athlete?
2) If you don't like the criticism, then stop with the weed and beer and go work on your game. Beasley's had it too easy as a ball player, being so much more talented than everyone else his age growing up. That is, until now when he has to face the big boys on a nightly basis. It was one thing horsing the scrubs he played against at Kansas State. This however, is the NBA. So pull your panties up motherfucker and get to work. He has found out the NBA was not as "EASY" as he thought it would "BE". Remember what happened in college the one time you faced someone as talented as you? Let me remind you-
3) Less re-HAB, more re-BOUNDS.
4) It never ceases to amaze me how some of these athletes get drawn into fronting the "Thug Life " AFTER they've made it rich. Get it through you're thick head, Beasley-if you want endorsement money coming in and your name to ring out in the right circles for the right reasons, you need to do more of THIS-
...and less of THIS-
Is there anyone living in the ghetto who wouldn't high-tail it out of there given half a chance? Stop pretending that it's cool. Your ghetto hood life stopped the moment you began getting preferential treatment because of your basketball talent. The bullshit you're pulling is an insult to those who live in the 'hood because they have no choice. All you're doing with your tattoos and cornrows is mocking a lifestyle very few people would choose to live if they had options.
Stop trying to undermine your career before it's even gotten off the ground, son. Look at all the athletes who've come before you that have made mistakes that cost them millions of dollars and worse. And work to improve your game before you get traded to some bum-ass team that has no chance of improving once the 2010 free agent class becomes available.
Jayson Williams
Oh boy, where do I start with THIS motherfucker? This guy's life has turned into the biggest nightmare since "The Amityville Horror". And the sad part is most of it was self-inflicted. It all started with his drinking problem, which got exponentially worse hanging out with lardass Charles Barkley when they both played for the Philadephia 76ers.
If anyone remembers what an out-of-shape, hopelessly unathletic buffoon Barkley morphed into the last few years of his career, it was because he spent most of his life binge-drinking and screwing white women when he should have been eating his veggies and following a real exercise regimen, which for him consisted of throwing hapless bar patrons through plate glass windows and spitting on the kids of hecklers after games.
But I digress. When Williams finally got his act together, lost weight and took his game seriously he was handsomely rewarded with one of the NBA's first max contracts. Then during the waning moments of a game on April 1, 1999 he collided with (of all people) Stephon Marbury, broke his leg and was forced to retire due to his injuries. He retired while in the second year of a six-year, $86 million contract-money he collected even though he never played a second after the accident occurred.
He and his father built "Who Knew? Estates", a 27,000 square foot house on 65 acres of prime New Jersey real estate. He was married, had a wonderful family and had the world by the fucking nuts. And he literally blew it with one blast of a shotgun.
A few things to know about Jayson Williams. He has a one-of-a-kind personality. He was known to be the life of the party and the center of attention wherever there was a social gathering. He has a great sense of humor. This came across when he was hired as an NBA analyst with NBC sports. But he has a dark side, and a mean and obnoxious streak that finally blew up in his face when he accidentally shot a limo driver in his own fucking house. This was the incident which sent his life into freefall and finally, after settling with the family of the deceased for a couple of million and spending even more on legal fees, he is now behind bars serving a 5 year prison sentence.
The depressing part in all this, and the incidents are to numerous to mention here without getting sidetracked, is all the trouble he got into AFTER the shooting. You'd think someone in such a position would have people counseling him about his behavior. But that's the thing-a guy like Williams is surrounded by "yes" men and fawning relatives, pathetic suck-ups who don't want to risk getting a one-way ticket back to Loserville from whence they came. They too were living the dream, and it's why his behavior kept spiraling out of control with no one around to check him.
So we are now left with this image of him, crying in court after sentencing-
I cannot for the life of me (and I've tried, in my spare time) fathom what gets into these athletes to be so self-destructive after having the world handed to them on a silver platter. This is his current situation-the estate has been sold, his wife filed for divorce, his father recently passed away and he is in prison, where he will be eligible for parole in a year and a half.
This has been his trajectory-from the projects of the Lower East Side (no picnic, believe me) to suffering the deaths of two older sisters to AIDS, to a D-I basketball scholarship and a ride to the big time, to a multi-million dollar pro basketball contract, to never realizing his potential due to a catastrophic injury, to all manner of off-the-court offenses involving drugs, alcohol and violence, to living his dream with the big house and the property, to fucking jail.
The Show Release date August 20, 1995. Running time 1 hour 33 minutes.
Here is a movie description from allmovie.com-
"This documentary offers viewers an in depth look at the world of hip-hop and rap music as it chronicles a diverse group of performers preparing to give a major concert at Philadelphia's Armory. Interspersed amongst the preparations are interviews with rappers past and present, looks at their personal lives, commentary on their significance and upon the music, and plenty of concert footage. Featured acts and performers include, Slick Rick, who has been imprisoned for second-degree murder; Snoop Doggy Dog and Tha Dogg Pound, Russell Simmons, Dr. Dre, B.I.G; Melle Mel, LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Da 5 Footaz, YNN and more."
Very interesting look at some talented cats that very often get dismissed as just thugs and criminals. Some of them can actually rap as well. Don't miss the opportunity to peep The Notorious B.I.G. doing his thing onstage. When I first saw the film I wondered who was that other guy rapping with him onstage-it's Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.
