If there’s anything I have to say regarding how the last two days of my life have been, it’s new (and hot). Moving to another city is new, being 13 hours away from the only state I’ve ever grown up in is new, and the people are new. Since I discovered I would be coming to Charlotte for the summer, I’ve been trying to map out what I needed to do to get comfortable in a new environment, and I finally know what it is. Fitness. Like I mentioned four times already, being in a new state is new to me. In my tender 22 years of living, I’ve never actually lived outside of Wisconsin for an extended period of time. Besides that, I’m really far from my family, and that includes the ones that are and aren't in America. As much as I want to talk to my mom and dad right now, I can’t unless I wake up early in the morning and burn a stack of $5 calling cards (they're vacationing in Eritrea for the summer). One of my two sisters is all the way out in California, while my other one is back in Milwaukee with my brother and his family. My other brother is Minnesota. It's hard being this far away from them, especially because they've all been supportive of me throughout the moving process. (Of course I'm the youngest of them all.) Everybody has a different way of releasing stress and getting their mind away from things, and forcing my body to sweat tears of justice is what does it for me. Why? When I lost weight a year ago, I felt like I was in a different mental state that actually helped me feel invincible. For example, the more I worked out, the less I wore t-shirts (not really, but you get the metaphor). I unfortunately gained a lot of the weight I lost (50) back, and commuting an hour for school three times a week the last two semesters plus covering two professional sports team caused it to happen. Getting back in the gym and eating healthy gets me right mentally and spiritually, and that’s what I’m going to do to get comfortable here in Charlotte.
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This past year marked my third on the Milwaukee Bucks beat, and it was definitely my most exciting and interesting season yet. Part of that is obviously because the Bucks made the playoffs, but it’s also because of the drama, personalities and experiences I went through. The everlasting one was covering the Bucks’ playoff run against the Chicago Bulls, in both Chicago and Milwaukee. My three years on the team in Milwaukee never required me to cover the Bucks on the road.
Although the Bucks made the playoffs in my first year thanks to the dynamic and dynamite duo of Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis, I didn’t work as hard as I do now to warrant a spot to cover the game at the time. Covering the NBA in the postseason is a whole different ballgame than the regular season. There’s obviously more media, but the games are (mostly) better, the content for your publication rises and the format of how everything is ran is faster. It was all new for a young gun like me. I’ve met a lot of smart and good people in journalism during my time covering the team, and the majority of those people are from opposing teams. Driving and car-pooling to Chicago during the series gave me a small sample of what it’s like to grind for multiple hours and then deal with travel arrangements. This experience gave me a greater appreciation for beat writers because moving from city-to-city and having to constantly stay on your toes is not easy. I always covered just home games, and never really had a chance to see what those guys go through. Games 1 and 2 were so different for me, and I’m glad I made sure to get to the United Center super early so that I could get comfortable with where everything was, and who I could ask questions to. I’m also thankful for the Chicago media members that helped me out. The last thing I learned and wanted to make clear about the postseason – for the Bucks specifically – is that there are a lot of media members in Milwaukee that aid in the unbalanced coverage of the team in the city. Wisconsin will always be a Packers state -- always -- but the side-eye coverage from people at various Milwaukee networks and entities really disappoints me. There are a lot of media members who show up to playoff games that haven’t been to more than five games all season, and that’s sad. It’s even worse when those people are asked by national outlets outside of Wisconsin for their opinion on the team, while people who have busted their chops the entire season aren’t. There will always remain a Packers-based culture in Wisconsin, but a lot of media members should stop acting like a portion of fans in the state and pay attention to the NBA franchise in Milwaukee. It's pretty easy to tell who doesn't do their homework in journalism. All in all, I had a lot of fun, and I'm very grateful for everything the experience taught me. Chicago still isn't really a city for my liking, but walking through their historic arena and admiring hallway graphics of Michael Jordon and Scottie Pippen was something I'll cherish forever. Cheers. It took nearly two years, but I finally paid off a debt I had with the University of Southern Indiana that should’ve never been put on my record in the first place. Some of you may be reading this wondering what the heck I am talking about, so let me briefly explain …
Coming out of high school, I wanted to attend a journalism school or one with a solid program right away, and from the first day I stepped on the University of Wisconsin-Parkside’s campus, I always told myself I was going to leave immediately. After my first semester of college, I kind of did that. I scrambled and transferred to USI without doing any of the proper homework. None. My older brother Simon and cousin Naomi drove me roughly eight hours to Evansville, IN, and then boom, that town became my new home. Not being aware, I discovered my first day on campus that practically none of my financial aid from the state of Wisconsin transferred over in Indiana, which wasn’t good. At all. Sitting down with a counselor, I was slid a loan application for $12,000 (a semester) that gave me the option of digging myself into the gates of hell. I had another option though, and that was taking my butt all the way back to Wisconsin. I got up and left her office. Luckily, my roommates were really cool and took me to Walmart that night to help me find some luggage to jam all of my stuff in. Some items were left behind, but a family friend not too far away from the city stopped by and stored them in his basement until the next time he visited Milwaukee (which was just three months later, actually). I lasted four days in Indiana. Four! So where did the debt come from? A lousy housing contract that I had to sign to you know, keep a roof over my head. So every month since March 2013, I’ve been paying off my 1,*** debt with monthly payments, and today was the last one. An ending to probably the dumbest decision I’ve ever made in my 22-year-old life. But hey, that decision not only got me in more debt, it helped me understand how to make better decisions going forward, and how I need to think everything I do through. Do I have regrets? Financially, certainly. But I try to look at everything else as a huge learning experience. I’ll try not to get too excited about this though, because in nine months, I’ll be doing this all again once I graduate. Donations are greatly appreciated. You never personally set out to have a life-changing moment happen while on the sticks of a Madden 11 video game, but that’s kind of what happened to me four years ago today. I paused my career-mode that night once I heard my mother send out the strangest cry mixed into a yell of her life upstairs suddenly. I had never heard that sound from my mom before, ever. It caught me so out of place, all I could do was just go see what was wrong. She told me to get dressed because we were going to my brother Samson’s apartment – roughly 15-20 minutes away. Nearly 10 years ago, Dave Chappelle had a contract offer of $50 million from Comedy Central to renew his hit show, “Chappelle Show”, but declined the money and suddenly broke away from the public eye. Chappelle has made his way around the U.S. in recent months selling out shows, and took stage in front of a sell-out Milwaukee crowd at the Pabst Theater Tuesday evening.
The 41-year-old comedian rarely makes any sort of appearance in the state of Wisconsin, but returned as he performed shows in Madison over the weekend, followed by a doing six more in three days here in Milwaukee starting Monday and ending Wednesday. When I first scrolled down my Twitter timeline at 6:00 a.m. about a month ago, I was ecstatic but yet shocked that the man behind the iconic Comedy Central hit show was finally making his way to my home turf. I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. Before Chappelle got his turn on stage, two other local comedians – one being from Milwaukee, while the other coming from Chicago – opened up the show. It took a bit for me to get warmed up on the Milwaukee guy, but he made progression and got better through the act. The second guy was good from start to finish, as most of his act was about the trials and tribulations he goes through as a Muslim. Together, they weren’t knock-your-socks-off funny, but they did well considering they were opening for a worldwide name such as Chappelle. It took a whole lot of listening to old school hip-hop and fist pumping because of the night’s DJ, but Chappelle took the stage about 30-45 minutes after the 10 p.m. scheduled time (note: due to restrictions on electronic devices, I’m giving you an estimated time). The show was certainly worth the $72 and stress from websites crashing, and his set went for about an hour. He ventured off and described his weekend in Madison (he attended Saturday’s game against the Maryland Terrapins, the university located near his hometown of Washington, D.C.), his family – including his dog named Baba – and also revealed his life-long fetish, feet [expletive]. His performance didn’t feel like one to me, I got the sense that it was more of a conversation. The quality of the show itself didn’t even matter honestly. Just knowing I was in the same area as the man who made masturbating on a city bus funny, and Prince the greatest unknown basketball player of all-time was more than I could ever ask for. Favorite line - Regarding the University of Wisconsin having a badger as a mascot: “I didn't even know what a badger was until two days ago. I'd never seen these creatures. Back in Maryland, a badger is something that prosecutors do to black people." |
Behind the BroadcasterThis blog displays topics that interest me -- including culture, entertainment, music, and life experiences.
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