The girls in the hood yellin' "50 you hot!"

To start off, please note that I finally remembered a title. Now, on with the show.


Saturday in NYC: Wake up, head for train station, get stopped because they are shooting the 50 Cent life story on my street. There were signs warning us about this the week before, then broken down cars from the '70s started lining the street. Next came the large white trailers with the character's names (Junebug, Charlene et al.) People on my block don't miss a marketing opportunity, so all the cars soon had flyers stuck under their windshield wipers.

Happily, they had to dirty the street up a little with fake graffiti and broken windows. Since Fitty grew up in one of Queen's toughest neighborhoods, it would have been a real kick in the head if they could have shot it untouched. Or, as my brother, Kevin, put it, if they'd looked around and said, "It's almost TOO crappy, let's clean it up."

My neighbors were not taking kindly to waiting behind barricades to get to the station, so they kept walking past the shouting guards. I don't think they'll be filming the sequel here.

50 himself wasn't there, but apparently there was a fight under a train overpass near a barber shop at some point in young 50's life. The kid who played young Fitty was standing there with The Club as a shirtless man and others over-acted to a fight happening off camera. I had a front row view of this, so if you go see the movie with me, I am going to be obnoxious about it. Just a fair warning. At this point I'm planning to yell, "That's my street!" but I may settle for offering unnecessary commentary such as, "It doesn't really look like that" or "They put up fake signs and added graffiti" just so others in the movie theatre can feel like they were there too.

I'm helpful like that.