sometimes I'm a loser
I may be an ass… but you have awful taste
Mar 3rd
So I was at Macy’s shopping with one of my girlfriends about a week ago and she was pushing me to try on a hideous dress I knew I was gonna hate. I told her I didn’t want to waste my time, but she kept saying, “Oh E, it’s gonna look better on. I’m telling you that hanger just isn’t doing anything for it…”
Needless to say she punked me into it. I had her wait out by the three-way mirror and I was just talking ish the whole time I was trying to get it zipped and buttoned up:“Ugh, this dress is so ugly… Why the hell did you make me try this on?… You would never wear any shit like this… Who would BUY this piece of crap?”
You name it, I probably said it. She wanted me to come out and show her and I kept on… “Alright, but there better not be anyone else out there. I don’t even want to be seen in a dressing room wearing this thing.” She assured me there was no one else out there, but as I was opening the door to my dressing room, the door directly across from me opens at the same time, and the woman is standing there right in front of me wearing the dress I’ve been bashing out loud for the past 5 minutes…
Yeah.
AWWWK-WARD…
This stuff doesn’t happen to other people, does it? No, really… I couldn’t even look up. But I could tell she was staring dead at me. It was the most ashamed I’ve been of myself in years…
I don’t know if that lady bought the dress — I didn’t stick around to find out — but me and my big mouth have totally learned our lesson. I know this is gonna sound hella self-centered but sometimes it totally slips my mind that there are other people in the world… Well, I plan on taking this to the stage. So hopefully it will have been a worthwhile experience on more than one front.
Ugly Michael Kors dress lady, if you’re reading… I’m sorry for being an ass. But if we’re honest with ourselves I think all three of us will admit that dress was herblistenous… So, in a weird roundabout way, I kinda did you a favor… Yeah.
You’re welcome.
I need a new vacuum cleaner
Oct 5th
I do. Because the one I have now requires me to actually pull it out of the closet, plug it in, and push it around the room.
I know, right?
Any suggestions on a replacement? I have no patience for this archaic cleaning device.
Join my street team
Sep 29th
I suck at dating.
I do. I’ve never really been big on trying to sell myself to another person. I guess I’ve always thought, hey I’m pretty cool. If you agree, lets go bowling. That’s a good date in my book. I’m not picky I promise.
I’ve been on some really bad dates… And I’ve been on some decent ones, but overall I think I’m just over it. I’m tired and I don’t really have the energy to sift thru all the men out there to find the right one for me.
When I was in college, there was a local club promoter who used to pay me and a couple of my friends $20 a nite to pass out party flyers to promote his events. We wore matching t-shirts and would stand outside clubs and give out flyers to people that were leaving. We’d hand them out by the doors, put them on car windshields (yeah that was me ;) And for every person who came to his party and showed a pass with my code on it (they were marked) I would get $2. Great incentive for the ladies on the street team. It saved him time and advertising dollars, and even if 20 people showed up with my flyers he was only out like $60 total which was like a gold mine to me at the time.
I’ve been thinking recently that what I need is a street team for my personal life. Just pay a bunch of good-looking guys to do the work for me — wear Erin Jackson t-shirts, pass out flyers and tell other guys what a catch I am. On the front of the flyers there would be a (very flattering) photo of me in a (very) low-cut top, and on the back there would be a list of some of my best qualities, such as:
- makes a mean lasagna and bakes cakes from scratch (this shows I’m domestic)
- owns her own home (this shows I’m responsible)
- drives a beat-up Corolla with only 3 hubcaps (this shows I’m not materialistic)
- loves sports and Jack Daniel’s (this shows I’m cool)
- has a huge music collection and will allow you to download from her iTunes (this shows I’m not selfish)
And I’d tell my boys… You see a nice car? Put a flyer on the windshield. Maybe it’s a man’s car, maybe it’s not. At this point, who can afford to be picky? I’m not sure what the incentive would be for street team members whose flyers return a successful date, but I’d make it worth their while. Maybe I’d go on a date with them. Who knows?
All I know is that I can’t do this alone.
Will you join my street team? I’m having an interest meeting next Friday.
Moviefone on my Blackberry a.k.a. where are the letters?
Sep 1st
So… overall I’ve adjusted well to my new-ish Blackberry. As a person who was previously gadget-averse, I have come to appreciate most of the bells and whistles that come along with my Blackberry Curve. But today I was confronted with a problem for which there was no solution (that I could see). All you hi-tech folks, let me know if there’s a way to do this… There HAS to be…
I was riding in my car today on my way to see Tropic Thunder and I needed to call Moviefone to verify the start time of the show and when it came time to enter ‘THE NAME OF THE MOVIE YOU WANT TO SEE” I couldn’t do it because there are no letters on the numeric part of the keypad. I’ve been using phones for probably 27 years or so, but I was paralyzed without the letters. Is Blackberry trying to tell me that I should have memorized this by now? Is there a function that allows me to see the equivalent letters? Or is this the worst design flaw in the history of cell phones? I know that I’m gonna probably feel like an idiot once someone shows me how this works, but I can also imagine calling an office and trying to spell someone’s last name would be kind of challenging, unless of course that person’s last name was ABC.
But I don’t think that’s a very common surname.
HELP!!!
And yes, I’m aware that I’m turning this blog into a support forum, but it’s all I got!
Damn, I don’t know this song either
Jul 28th
So I wasn’t working this past weekend and got a chance to be “normal” ;) and hang with some of my friends. Hooray! On Friday nite, me and my friend Kellz went out to a club. I put on a dress and heels and we got to the club before it was real packed and set up shop on the first floor by the bar.
Perfect.
The music was great. They were playing a lot of old school hip hop and R&B, some Chaka — a little Tribe. We were having a great time. We even spotted an S-Curl and I made Kellz pretend I was taking a picture of her so old boy wouldn’t know we were clowning him…
Big fun.
After about an hour, we went upstairs to the second level. And as we were standing on the outskirts of the dance floor watching folks get their dance on, I slowly began to realize that I didn’t know any of the music the DJ was playing. You know that “Awwwwww, s—! That’s my joint / Woooooo!” sound that happens right after the DJ plays the first few notes of a club banger??? Well I heard it repeatedly. I saw the hands go up in the air. But I didn’t recognize any of the songs.
How the hell did this happen?
I consciously stopped listening to urban contemporary radio stations several years ago — not because I don’t like hip hop — but because I *do.* And what passes for hip hop and R&B on the radio these days sickens me. I prefer to read reviews and forums, find artists that I like and buy/download their music myself. But even so, the ignorance that floods the airwaves has always found a way to somehow seep into my consciousness. Thru commercials or MTV or something… Last Friday however, I literally knew none of the songs that were played in like a 20-minute period.
What are you supposed to do in a situation like that? Should you just throw your hands up in the air when everyone else does and pretend like you like the raggedy-ass ‘music’ that’s playing (as one friend suggested)? Or do you just acknowledge the fact that you’re over it and look for a comfy seat?
I opted for option #2.
Overall I enjoyed myself that nite but I spent the last half hour we were there texting a friend of mine who was being equally lame at another club.
My how times change… More >
Priority Shift
Jul 22nd
So I just got back from a great week at the Funnybone in Virginia Beach. I did a little shopping, a little relaxing, worked with great people in a great room, and the check cleared. You can’t ask for much more.
Also while I was down there, I re-evaluated and re-ordered the must-have characteristics I need in a potential mate.
Here’s the background: Thursday nite after the show I went back to the comics’ condo, which is a very neat, very clean garden style unit. But because it’s a garden apartment, the front door opens right to the outside. I put the key in the door and then realized that there was a huge flying/hopping ’croach’ thingy (wasn’t sure if it was a cricket or a roach) on the door. I totally freaked because I am paralyzed by bugs. Anyone who knows me well already marvels at how I was able to live in that little basement apartment in the hood for 8 years.
Tylenol PM and Benadryl is how. You’re not worried about croaches when you see unicorns…. But I digress.
I literally was so tired and buzzed all I wanted was to crawl in the bed. But I was frozen. I called the headliner who is a friend of mine and was like, “Could you stay on the phone with me until this croach dies?” He humored me for about three minutes. We talked about how if hell was a personal hell customized for each of us what would be in each of ours… And we determined that mine would be full of croaches and other pests, octopus/pi or anything else with tentacles, that scene from the Matrix when they put that tracker thing into Neo’s belly would be playing on an eternal loop … and there would be black olives everywhere … I HATE black olives.
After he wished me well and got off the phone I still couldn’t go in. It wasn’t a matter of just opening and closing the door really quickly… because I didn’t know if it was a cricket or a roach. How fast was it? That’s need-to-know info. Because where it was positioned on the door if I opened the door it was literally going to BE inside… What to do?
So I called my buddy Dawan. He’ll humor me I thought… Plus he’s in LA so its not so late. He talked me thru it. Told me to break off a piece of the crepe myrtle outside and brush it off the door. But just as I pulled the branch, he was like, “Make sure there’s no bugs on the branch.” I threw it and screamed. I hadn’t thought of that…
Eventually he convinced me to pick up the branch and brush the croach off the door. I did it and I exhaled… but then it ran back to the door at lightning speed.
Roach for sure.
Finally after a while I was so delirious, I just held my breath and chanced it. I got in, shut the door behind me and stood still for like 10 seconds to make sure it didn’t make it in. I was safe.
It wasn’t til then that D laughed at me and said how rich we would be if I had been recording the incident. We’d be Youtube stars. He’s a good friend. The best… But it got me to thinking… ‘Croach killer’ was not on my list of must-haves in a man. Stability, trustworthiness, great sense of humor… All those things are great. But no matter how much I love you, we can’t both be standing on the sofa scared of a damn spider… I need to add it to my list and move it towards the top.
So thanks Virginia Beach for the much-needed priority shift, and the new bit ;)
Friends… Finally. ;)
Jun 22nd
So back in April I wrote this blog about how I wasn’t able to add Rahsaan Patterson — one of my favorite singers in the world — as a friend on Myspace. His profile said he didn’t accept comedians, blah blah, blah…It was an admittedly lame blog. But it was also an EFFECTIVE blog. Because on Wednesday, I got an e-mail from one Rahsaan Patterson saying that he read my blog, changed his privacy settings and could accept me now as a friend. Yeee-haw!!!
Thanks to one of my girlfriends who apparently brought this issue to his attention, I received the following e-mail from him… You don’t get the whole thing — just the highlights ;) :
so, a friend of yours sent me a message today.
she mentioned you were not accepted as a friend on my page.
a few weeks ago someone else sent a message saying, a friend of theirs, who is also a comedian wasn’t accepted also.
i went to my settings, saw they were somehow not fixed to accept requests from comedians, and i changed it.sorry for the mishap and THANKS so much for buying my music….well at least 3 of them. ;)
if you tell me which one you don’t have i’ll have it mailed to you. :)
peace.
rahsaan
Cool huh?
The internet is magic ;) What a nice guy… Thanks Rahsaan!
Buy his albums!!!
My Love Affair with P. Sway
Jun 3rd
“This is MY dance space. This is YOUR dance space. I don’t go into yours, you don’t go into mine. You’ve got to hold the frame.”
This scene where Johnny says this to Baby is the No. 1 reason why Dirty Dancing is my favorite movie of all time.
Followed by these other gems:
“You just put your pickle on everybody’s plate college boy and leave the hard stuff to me.”
“I didn’t spend all summer long toasting bagels just to bail out some little chick who probably balled every guy in the place.”
“I carried a watermelon.”
“It’s not on the one. It’s not the mambo. It’s a feeling… a heartbeat.”
“Me? I’m scared of everything. I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.”
Yeah… I know what you’re thinking… and I agree.
I remember the first time I saw this cinematic masterpiece. I was in 4th grade. It was a sleepover at Alissa Horn’s house, and we TOTALLY weren’t supposed to be watching it — what with all the ‘adult content’. But we were sneaky, and late at night Alissa woke us all up and popped the tape into the VCR.
It was a life-changing moment. I fell in heart with Patrick Swazye (P. Sway is what I call him) in the MOST inappropriate way. And then he had the nerve to go and make Ghost – I was sure he was the love of my life. So blinded was I that I sat thru films such as Roadhouse and To Wong Foo with absolutely zero judgment for my man.
My heart still flutters every time I hear ‘Hungry Eyes’.
I may never love like this again I know. Here’s to you P Sway.
What did YOU do this weekend? I solved a crime.
May 24th
Yay! So last nite I took BFF Kellz to a murder mystery dinner theatre to celebrate her birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KELLZ!!!
Yes I know. I’m old. But we were both really looking forward to it. From everything I’ve ever seen or heard about dinner theatre, I expected it to be kinda cheesy. And Blair Mansion Inn did not disappoint. That is not to say that we didn’t really enjoy ourselves. We did! Me and Kellz are kinda cheesy too ;)
We got there around 6:30 for drinks and ordervs (I refuse to Google to find the correct spelling of that word. I’m comfortable with the afore-typed ignorance). Then came the dinner buffet. We each ordered a glass of Riesling and waited for the show to start.
The crowd was really interesting. There was a group of recovering military and staff from Walter Reed Army Hospital there, some senior citizens, a table in the corner that looked like the Negro Last Supper, a family with a little kid (who totally didn’t get the spank-the-monkey reference made by one of the ‘actors’ but laughed just the same), a woman from Sri Lanka, a couple from Budapest (they were ‘hungary’ — not my joke).
Here’s a synopsis of the play we saw – Three Strikes & You’re Dead:
The Maryland Crabballs, holding a strong last place position in the Virtual Baseball League (VBL), Is proud to announce a major acquisition to its starting line-up. Jose Canstriko, the league’s all-star center fielder will be joining the Balls, effective immediately. Excited at the prospect, young billionaire owner B.O. Smelly has commented that “Jose will be a valuable new member to our baseball family.” The team manager, Major Constance Strain, is somewhat concerned that this addition to the roster could disrupt his plans for the team, which is lead by its current center fielder, Willie Daze. Willie is accompanied by his overbearing wife, Stormy Daze, who’s here to protect her investment…namely Willie’s million dollar contract. Hopefully, Willie’s agent, Anita Deal, can pull some strings and get him a better contract.
The question is, when the dust clears and it’s all on the line, will the outcome be “fair or will it be a strike out” in the most permanent manner? Namely, Dead.
You be the judge……
Yeah, I know ;)
Jose died at the table next to us — with the hungary couple.
Getting rid of the evidence….
Did the compulsive gambling team manager do it?
Who knows?…
I liked that the show was interactive. We were encouraged to talk to the actors, which, as a stand-up, is weird at first… You kinda don’t want to interact because it feels a hell of a lot like heckling, but then you realize that’s what makes the show. By the end I was just shouting stuff out. It was like payback therapy. I hearted it ;)
In the end, Detective Justin Case helped us to examine the clues and determine who the murderer was…
TA DA!!!! I won’t spoil it for those of you who are just dying to see this show. I would totally do it again. It was just like I thought it would be and that was fine with me. I recommend it — more for the experience than the theater.
Two thumbs up.
EJ Out.
Why won’t you be my friend, Rahsaan Patterson?
Apr 7th
OK… so I understand that what I’m about to write is extremely corny and that it should embarrass me.
It doesn’t. But I understand why it should.
And I understand that everyone doesn’t use Myspace for self-promotion. Even famous people. Some folks use it just to stay in touch with people they already know.
Totally get it.
But one of my favorite singers doesn’t accept friend requests from comedians and doesn’t allow messages from people he’s not friends with. Which leads me to believe that he actually manages his own page. All the more reason for me to want to send him the message I spent nearly 20 minutes drafting prior to being brickwalled by his privacy settings. I reference him in my ‘Music Interests’ section on my page… I own every single one of his albums, and I actually bought all but one of them (just being honest — sista is on a budget). And I refuse to allow myself to consider the fact that he doesn’t care that I heart him because… well because that would be awful.
So in the wake of the worst Myspace catch-22 ever, here’s my question — How do I get Rahsaan Patterson to be my friend? And does my burning (yes, burning) desire to make him my Myspace friend mean that I’m a huge loser?
(Please note that I only really want an answer to the first part of that question.)
I’m a good friend, Rahsaan. Really I am.
Also the message that comes up on Myspace… “Rahsaan Patterson does not accept friend requests from ‘comedians’” really made me feel like no matter what my page category was, he’d still deny me. Seriously, in my head, I just imagined a nice pleasant operator voice saying, “We’re sorry. Rahsaan Patterson does not accept friend requests from…” And then some really harsh computer generated monster robot voice saying “Co-me-di-ans.” I feel like if my page was categorized as ‘puppies and angels’ it still would have denied me :(
Pleasant operator lady: We’re sorry. Rahsaan Patterson does not accept friend requests from…
Mean monster robot madlib-filler-inner: PUP-PIES and AN-GELS OR ANY-THING ELSE YOU COME UP WITH SO WHY DON’T U GET A LIFE E-RIN JACK-SON.
OK, I’m gonna go try and muster up some self esteem.
EJ. Out.
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