What happens when two brown girls walk into a Far East Movement party?
It’s like a blizzard.
Okay, not really, but I wanted to incorporate the lyrics of the group’s most popular (albeit lyrically confusing) song, “Like a G6.”
Anyway. Far East Movement. In case the “Far East” part of their name didn’t give it away, they’re Asian, and so is a majority of their fanbase. Not the Asian that Brits refer to as Asian (those would be my type of people), but rather the boba-drinking, fast-car-loving, is-this-post-getting-too-stereotypically-racist-for -ya? kind of Asian. Needless to say, we stood out…
At least, until we spotted a 6’11” black man in the corner (who of course stands out in a room whose dominant ethnicity isn’t exactly known for being tall, minus a Yao Ming here or there) who we immediately recognize as early 90’s basketball star John Salley.
It turns out, he recognizes us too…immediately asking our ethnicity, specifically if my friend Hibah is Punjabi (an ethnic group in India/Pakistan.) She states that she’s half-Indian, half-Pakstani (same as myself…yet for some reason John Salley decides to hear that I’m half-Indian half-white instead… which I’m okay with since that mix tends to always be attractive anyway.) He then tells us that he’s actually part Indian, and that his great-great-grandmother was an Indian indentured servant during the days of slavery…making him like 1/16th Indian. As he says, it’s the reason he “loves sex and has no ass.” Anyway, this discovery that John Salley is part Indian immediately creates a bond, and we continue chatting for the next 30 or so minutes (because like we learned in college, if you’re brown and I’m brown, we’re by default friends or something.)
Highlights?
- He’s been to India, traveled a lot, took an old Canadian girlfriend who was Punjabi to India for the first time and explored the country with her
- He’s vegan. He started out vegetarian for health reasons, then became spiritual in a path that involves Jinn and Buddha and self. He elaborates and tells us that the leaders of the world didn’t eat meat, and claim that Jesus and Muhammad and Buddha would have never taken another life to fulfill their own (not sure what the Bible or Quran says about this…)
- As he’s encouraging us to explore the vegan path, Hibah tells him that she can’t live without her sunny side up eggs. He then makes some reference to eggs being the result of a chicken’s menstrual cycle (which we had never really thought of til that moment.) Needless to say, Hibah still totally ate eggs the next day.
- Speaking of menstrual cycles, let’s move on to the topic of intimacy. Or as John Salley refers to it, F—ing. He tells about the four daughters he has, one as old as 24, and the advice that he gives his girls. “If a guy calls you at 1:30am and it’s not from jail, he wants one thing… don’t go there for him, go there for you. You do the Effing.” (Obviously, this is NOT his 1/16th Indian side speaking… my ethnic parents would never say such a thing.)
- We eventually talk business, specifically, what we do for a living. Once he finds out I host a tech show for Sony, he tells me how he’s a big techie, and that he’ll be at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) in January in Vegas…(yes, I’ll be there, and yes I will be looking for him. He promised if I searched and found him, he’d remember me.)
- Mr Salley and I then sorta bond over this whole TV/hosting business, and the fact that we have a mutual former boss in current Reelz Channel and former TV Guide Network executive Matt Singerman (who apparently just recently cancelled Salley’s Reelz Channel show, thus making the mutual friend a slightly awkward reference.)
Awkwardness aside, the conversation was fun, I got a photo and a Twitter friend out of it, and most importantly…a blog post. I may never eat eggs again but, hey, at least I have a decent story to explain my reasoning.
(DISCLAIMER: I’m not racist but for the sake of this blog post it may appear that way.)
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My favorite thing about John Salley is when I see highlights of Kobe & Shaq celebrating their first title in 2000, I can always see Salley on the bench celebrating more than Kobe or Shaq, as if the title was his doing. He is a great host though.