Sophia Loren giving Jayne Mansfield the side eye date unknown

Treehouse, thank you all for stopping by today on very little notice. Everyone looks so lovely in their couture gowns and tuxedos. I would like to present to you the three people who have succeeded in getting a permanent side eye from yours truly, The Comeback Girl. Let it be known that The Comeback Girl HATES overused cliche urban slang, “side eye” being one, but she couldn’t think of a more befitting term for her frustration of a few people and associated things.

Let us begin shall we?

1. Irv Gotti: I spent much of the later part of 2007 writing about Deb Gotti, her husband Irv and the VH1 show that really put a human spin on the single man-married man double life most married or otherwise involved hip-hop artists (and some actors) “must” lead. It was the “player player” persona non grata that hip-hop bore out of the seemingly two faced love of status, ie, money and “ho!es”. Curiously, Irv Gotti would launch the careers of married hip-hop artists (Ja Rule,  DMX etc.) who would go on to have some of THE most messiest and public entanglements with other women while pimpin’ the “single guy” image.

How To Be  A Rapper 101: a) You cannot profess your love for your wife or longtime girlfriend in your music, nor can you talk about her in interviews (unless you’re retired, around 40, and your name is Rev Run) b) You must fall for the SAME hook line and sinker from the SAME types of thirsty women who don’t necessarily WANT you but LOVE the idea of being the seductress who tried to cause a commotion in your home, or b) Your groupie becomes your prey because “she’s so much different” from all the rest, including your wife. But we all know “b”  just might be hip hop pixie dust because the “ideal woman” is now the overt pursuer, the seductress and “Ms. Independent”. The hip hop trifecta trickling down to a block near you.

Oh, wait its already here. Carry on.

2. Personal Trainers Who Look In Your Refrigerator When You Don’t Turn In Your Food Diary On Time: I’ve been working out with a personal trainer for three days a week in my house, getting beach body ready for the summer. In the meantime, I have been mumu-ing it up, to do my beach body unveiling in a few weeks a couple of months. I think I’m making good progress. But my trainer requires a food diary, that she has to sign off on every two weeks or so. I totally get the whole behavior modification thing. And I kiss it up to God. I really DID try to keep one for a few days and then I forgot. I mean basically I eat salad and salmon, oatmeal for breakfast and chicken with a vegetable for dinner. So why do I have to feel like I’m in the first grade turning in my homework with this portion of the regimen? So my trainer cuts the workout short when I told her I’d get it to her next week or better yet, just check out my blog that I’m going to do JUST related to “what I ate”. And she was like: “no, it has to go in your folder”. And she precedes to walk upstairs and looks in my refrigerator and cabinets. She did find some unopened girl scout cookies. But you know what? That’s just how gangster I am about my “lifestyle change”, I can look at girl scout cookies and NOT eat them. Its a jedi thin mint trick.

3. Dreadlocks On 15 year Old “Little Waynes” And Their Consenting Parents: I know that the conscious crowd likes to call them “locks”. And I respect that and will thus address that particular crown and glory to those people. But I don’t like dreadlocks on the “little Wayne crowd”. I live in a neighborhood FULL of  precious middle-class “little Wayne’s” whose parents think they are too good to go to work, summer camp, or school during the summer break. “The Little Wayne” vibe is usually topped bottomed off with wife beaters, skinny jeans that fall off of narrow bony as!ses (thank God that the “Chubby Little Wayne’s” have realized that skinny straight leg jeans are not for hippy, big booty little boys. In my day, (back in the mid to late 90s) men who wore “locks” were vegetarians, they smoked “ganja”, they listened to Bob Marley, they may have even written a poem or two. They also had pretty white teeth. There was an aura to wearing locks. Now everybody and their momma outside of “the vibe” wears them. There is a check list for “lock”s; otherwise you have dreads: a) YOU MUST HAVE A TALENT (preferably a musical one, see Lalah Hathaway. b) YOU CANNOT BE CATTY or GHETTO “Urban Contemporary”c) YOU MUST KNOW THE HISTORY OF LOCKS d) YOU CAN NOT “LITTLE WAYNE” THE CHILDREN.

Your Turn Treehouse…If You Had To Give Three SideEye Awards who/what would get them?

The Stats blew up sometime last night and it looks like its going to be a record 5 digit day and its all because of Deb “Gotti” Lorenzo, estranged wife to Irv. “Gotti’s Way” rounded out its season last night to the predictable two-faced father-husband/pimp perpetually conflicted on the definitions of father and husband in hip/hop.

Comeback Girl’s mama always says that you show a man how to treat you. The problem appears that once Deb started to show Irv (post marriage and kids), the lesson seemed to be too much to negotiate, even for a man on his own comeback in the rap industry. Memo to Irv, there are model men who have made consistent decisions to be great mates/husbands/boyfriends in the hip-hop fraternity and if you look hard in enough: Jay, Run, Dame Dash et al. just may holla back.

So Comeback Kids, your most favorite Comeback Girl in all of the Eastern and Western Hemisphere including all of the planets: Neptune, Pluto, etc., has decided that once she hits a magic number today-she will pursue getting a podcast interview with Deb. To my favorite comeback readers, you know this is a grown woman’s blog. We do grown folk conversation you may not find on the GEN Y parts of the black pop culture planet. With that said, I believe that those of us who are 30+ are fascinated with all things Irv and Deb. Aside from the whole hip-hop thing, he represents black men (or men of color) who stereotypically are labeled non-committal. Record Labels perpetuated the notion and men like Irv just kind of rode along for ride (and the check), cause isn’t “pimps up hoes down” alot easier to sell than a man deeply in love and commited to one woman.

I kind of believe that you can’t explain a man into wanting to settle down/honor his committments etc. He either does or he doesn’t, wants to or not, and sadly the more explainin’ you find yourself doing, the faster he runs the other damn way.

So Comeback Girls ***raising my cafe con leche (YES I HAVE GIVEN UP THE BREVE STARBUCKS CARAMEL hips and butt liquified for the hip/butt friendly drip) here’s to making our own selves better accountable to attracting better relationships and men in our lives, cause they do exist (and they aren’t all gay or dead).

Hi Comeback Kids, Comeback Girl is is so sick and tired of being predictable so today she decided would be the day that she I would (1) not do third person and (2) raise the stakes a little and get personal.

I wanted to thank my growing fan base because somewhere around week six I was at 10k hits (no cross linking no adverts). I know that internet traffic can be a little fickle. And this blog was in response to alot of black gossip sites that I thought weren’t really playing fairly, ie doing a lot of black celebrity gossip and exposing (some true, mostly false) information and determined not to reveal anything about themselves. This is a hybrid hodgepodge of celebrity news, gossip, reality tv recaps, and lots of personal reflection.

It appears (from google) that I am doing most if not all of the talking about Deb “Gotti” Lorenzo of VH1’s “Gotti’s Way”. Deb is married to Irv Gotti, CEO of Murder Inc. They have an arrangement whereby Deb lives in the suburbs with the kids and Irv lives in utter marital status denial and visits when the two faced side of hip hop rears it’s fatherly head (which is often to Irv’s credit).

But he is also a “husband” with second thoughts. I am moved by two of the recent comments about Irv and Deb which has inspired this post.

As I write this many women (specifically Black women-myself included) are trying to figure out how to get the love we all deserve and need. You might ask so where does “Honey Bumpkins” aka “O” come into all of this ? Well “O” is my boyfriend-at-large. He gets the “at-large” title because he’s totally re-vamped the idea of boyfriend as we work out our long distance relationship (ldr) while he does his “Grey’s Anatomy” thing that he’s worked semi hard at close to three years and extremely hard at for 5 months -the time he has been away. I’ve done everything I could (sometimes unknowingly) to test the boundaries, the trust, the love and ultimately him. When he first left I did alot of things I’m not terribly proud of: I went in his email, I called at strange times of the night needing to talk (with him always obliging me passing that portion of the “I wonder if he is alone” practicum. Other times I decided that LDR was something I couldn’t handle and went out on dates (which were STRICTLY dates). I was upfront with both “O” and most times my dates. However, “O” always seemed to know when I was on a date and always found a reason to call and want to have his version of my “talk”. The Frank Lucas date was the longest he’s ever waited to call post date: 3 hours.

So I stopped the dating for now. I am giving “O” a chance to come home in a couple of weeks so that we can have our “State of the Union” address. I still have relaspes. The email thing was a big one. One in which he hasn’t quite forgiven me. My mama always says that you’ll find anything you go hard enough looking for. I did find an email from an ex. It wasn’t romantic or anything. But I flipped. Please don’t ask how I hacked it.

A week or so ago “O” and I had a heart to heart. I confessed that I was once tied to the who. Now I am tied to the what. It means that I was so damn invested in the fact that I wanted HIM to be the one. I still do on many levels, but now I am much more tied to the goal. I ultimately want to be married with great kids and a husband.  I visualize it everyday. But “O” has become the variable. He’s not the only man on the universe. And I think ultimately, the tested relationships are the ones that make us better people for the one we are with or someone else.

What I admire most about Deb is that she stepped aside. She is no longer the same woman that she was when they met. But Irv chose to grow in a different direction. And throwing hip hop in the mix is a totally different bag of nuts.

I think its easy for us to look at women like (Justine “Run” Simmons, Jackie Christie, Tamia Hill) and say they are lucky, but these women have done the work whereby married to men in sterotypically womanizing professions have awarded them the deeply “committed” and married relationship prize.

I would love to have a roundtable with these women.

 Last night’s episode had us tuning in to Irv telling his boys to “man up” after one loses a football game. Deb and Irv Gotti have differences in child rearing opinion-having her side on “its ok for the boys to cry when they lose”.

But Irv, how short our memory is, when a previous episode had you doing the grown man whine to Russell Simmons concerning money and the label he bequeathed upon you.

I still love this show and even hip hop that’s never seemed to always love me back. Now Comeback Girls everywhere get a front row seat to how conflicted and paradoxical the rap industry really is.

At last post I wrote about Deb “Gotti” Lorenzo and how impressed I was with her “Come To Jesus”. As a hip-hop wife, I think she totally gets it. She doesn’t want to leave the burbs for a bigger house and worries that the house they may have to move into will not be paid for. She’s a “no mortgage” kind of girl. And you gotta love it.

On the other side of hip-hop wife hill, enter Diddy’s women Kim Porter, Sarah Chapman, et al. Diddy just signed a major 50/50 deal with Ciroc. This isn’t your yesteryear endorsement type of business that black entertainers used to sign. This is by all accounts a partnership with Ciroc. And I really admire that. BUT my mind goes to Sarah, Kim and others taking their calculators and fertility charts out. AND this doesn’t take Diddy off the hook. He is who he is: and you can’t make a hoe a husband.

What bothers Comeback Girl to no end is–when will we as women stop looking to get paid primarily through a relationship? I know this might trip alot of people out but its true in any relationship there is an exchange and sometimes it involves money particularly in a marriage-but that’s the nature of many relationships-my legal eagle friends call it Quid Quo Pro. But our Quid needs to be a little more than just a pretty face and great ovaries.

This is a game that involves who can tame the entertainer. But its one you never really win –you’re not just taming the entertainer, you also are going up against the ballerific mystique and mirage.