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Stop me if you heard this one before...; And mail call! (RP for BL XIV)
Topic Started: Jun 9 2016, 05:57 AM (15 Views)
Philip Donovan
Hotter than your average...
2016-JUN-8
11:43pm
Perth Amboy, NJ


*The sound of a pair of feet clomping on a concrete stairway is the only thing we can hear as the video is rather dark. The clomping becomes more and more audible until a light is triggered, illuminating all around it. We see Philip returning to his apartment after a late-night jog along the town’s waterfront. He’s holding a stack of mail he retrieved from his mailbox on the way up.

After fumbling to find his keys, he opens the front door and makes his way in, locking the door behind him. Eyeing the wet bar, he grabs a bottle labeled “KAVA”. Soon thereafter, he moseys his way to the balcony of the apartment, setting the bottle down on a glass table as he gets comfy in a deck chair.*


Let’s see what’s Gucci tonight.

Capital One credit offer! Man, at least AMEX only bothers me every 10 days. These cats seem to bother me every 10 hours. Sorry guys, you’re not in my wallet.

*He tosses the letter aside to get to the next one, which is a padded manila envelope from the EWA office.*

Fan mail! Man, say what you will about autograph hounds and crazy fans, but the fact peeps are still using postage to holler… that’s some dedication right there. Sure beats getting Tweeted at hundreds of times a day by folks wanting to be noticed by sempai. How impersonal is that? Reminds me, I need to re-up on gold Sharpies.

*The last of the mail was a plain red envelope. Philip’s address was on it, but there was no postmark on the front. Philip turned the letter over and his eyes abruptly grew large seeing that it was postmarked from…*

Strong Badia?

*Philip excitedly tears open the envelope from the side and pulls out a folded letter*

Blah, blah, blah… RMA NUMBER… is ready to be shipped back? In 7-10 business days?! *Philip lets out a fist pump* Well spank my ass and call me Charlie, Cheaty's actually coming back! Good freakin’ times.

*After coming down from the initial excitement of that positive bit of news, Philip stops to pop open the half-pint bottle of kava and knocks most of it back in one shot. While most folks would normally crack open an adult beverage of choice to wind down, kava had become his new thing. It wasn’t exactly like getting high, but it had quite a euphoric effect. Not the type that you’d get by popping ecstasy, but more of a Zen-like moment of clarity mixed with a slight feeling of sedation. Almost like a soft reboot of his nervous system.

It was around this time the EWA app had given him a push notification of the day’s headlines, one of which included the shots fired from Grace Goeren. He’d seen it all on the Network. Rather than seem fired up about it, he was rather contemplative with everything. Disarmingly so.*


"Philip Donovan got jokes."

"He's so vain."

"That dude is totes Peter Pan. I’m so cereal it’s not even funny."


If I had my Staples “Easy button” right now, you’d have heard me hammerin' that ish like it was the bongos. Color me surprised the rest of the EWA isn't collectively breaking their backs from stooping over to pick up the low-hanging fruit that's laying on the ground. If I had a dime for every cat who blanketed me with those stereotypes, I’d spend my off-days diving into my sea of riches like Scrooge McDuck from Duck Tales. (WOO-OOH!) But that's the way it is in this business. Know little, speak a lot more, the whole truth be damned.

Gracie, as much as I’d love to hit you with some funsies and let you believe you’ve got me totes figured out... We’re gonna’ take this on some higher level ish. Besides, I’m thinking at your age, you’re probz not hip to my worldly quips. Hell, you’re not even old enough to legally get into all those shens we peep on the EWA Network, but I digress. Tonight, instead of coming at you sideways with the dozens, I’m Lee Harvey Oswald and I’ve got you in my sights, shooting with such accuracy that Steph Curry would say “Damn, son.”

I'm still a witty cannibal on my third leg of the Path of the Warrior tournament. More like the path of least resistance, amirite? Dredd couldn’t get the job done. Sinn found a higher stakes table to play at, so she stood me up on the dance floor. And yeah, here I am and there you stand, probz mad jelly I barely broke a sweat to get to where I am. News flash, G: You don’t get to where you are strictly because of hard work. Oh no. If you make it in this world, chances are you were lucky to boot. You need a little luck to pair with that grind. Luck includes having a chance to take your shot. Luck includes being touched by angel on top of working hard and being smarter than everyone around you. Me? I’ve hit the lottery many times over being in this business, still being able to fight at a championship-level, winning belts, doing the damn thing kids dream of becoming and doing what grown-ups wish they could.

And call me whatever you want to make me sound like I’m confirmed as the adult Josh Baskin for the remake of “Big”. But right now, this right here? I’m feelin’ like Grimlock of the Dinobots having his moment of satori. Like Ogre stumping the nerds when he questioned whether "C-A-T" really spelled "D-O-G". Grace, you gon’ learn today.

See, all this crazy talk you’ve been spewing lately isn’t making me mad. I can take what I dish out. All’s fair in love and smack. If anything, I’m disappointed in you. Disappointed that you’re literally a symbol of where the world is headed. A world where cats put other folks into silos. They look at someone’s face, their race, their gender, their neighborhood and think, "Well, they're probably this, this, and that. Good at this. GREAT at that. But they probably suck at x, y, and z." Instead of understanding and constructing a person as a whole, they're setting them up to be perceived as only 2/3 of a full human and thus denying them their chance to exist as an equal. That why society's a clusterfuck and why we can't have nice things.

YOU, Grace, as a female experienced this at some time in your life, if not your entire life. If anyone should have empathy and awareness of this sort of thing, I’d put even money on it being you. So whattya' do? Pigeonhole me like the rest of them. Then again, you’re living with the luxury of being young and unknowingly basking in ignorance. Not to mention you’re just a sinister bitch to boot. But that’s cool, yo -- everyone needs to be kind of a prick to survive in this game where we get paid to punch each other in the face. It comes with the job description. I get that.

I can picture you right now seeing this: "Oh so Philip's talking now? Too little, too late."

You know what they say in the NBA: Sometimes you gotta' pass up a good shot for a great shot. I make my words count. Not a single one wasted. And the best shot you can give an opponent is the one they least expect. Surprise, G. Like a Muhammad Ali rope-a-dope, the joke’s on you.

I gotta’ say, I will enjoy the situational irony of tomorrow night. Going from one of the old guard in Dredd to squaring up against the new guard in you. My Jordans don’t discriminate when it comes to leaving imprints on faces. I’m just glad you’re not exactly all that keen on upkeep, so I won’t hear any crying about what I’m fixin’ to rearrange.

Enjoy pulling double-duty tomorrow night, G. Once you’re spent from dealing with El Chupacabra, I’ll take my rabbit’s foot and my chances against you and spoiler alert: Luck won’t be a lady.

One last thing: I’m starting to warm up to this idea of you and Azreal being the Steph and Riley Curry of the EWA. Quick question: Who sits on whose lap during the post-game pressers? Asking for a friend.

*Philip gives a slight chuckle to himself and finishes the last sip of his kava before the camera zooms away and fades to black*
Edited by Philip Donovan, Jun 9 2016, 06:08 AM.
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