Pootie Tang and Me

Last night while rewatching the Bing commercial mentioned in my last article, I noticed something that I hadn't before. There is one woman who was vaguely familiar in that commercial, but just like Jane Adams and Matthew Porretta, it took me a little while to realize where I knew her from. Last night it clicked, though. She was Momma Tang in the fantastic movie Pootie Tang, and that reminded me of a story that is very popular amongst the people I've told it to, so I'll share it with you all today.

I realize that some people might disagree with my regard for this movie starring Lance Crouther and Chris Rock, written and directed by Louis C.K., a hilarious comedian in his own right, and I'll readily admit that I understand why some people don't see the beauty in it. But this is one of a few movies in which I honestly find artistic merit whereas the general public and critics (and friends and family) unanimously agree that they're terrible movies. Another movie within this same field that comes immediately to mind is Freddy Got Fingered. I've tried to argue my side with people in person, but my arguments always fall on deaf ears, so let's just leave it, eh?

But back to Momma Tang. If you're familiar with this movie, hopefully you'll remember as fondly as I do the scene in which Chris Rock is dressed as a corn stock ("Corn-ass fool!") and Momma Tang (IMDb tells me her name is Ebony Jo-Ann) as a cow. Probably the funniest-looking shot I've ever seen in movies.

So let's bring this into reality a little bit. When I was in college some years back (this would probably be about 2001 or '02) my friends and I would watch Pootie Tang almost daily it seemed. Our three standards were Wet Hot American Summer, Freddy Got Fingered and Pootie Tang, and they played constantly at whoever's house we were hanging out at. After losing a purchased copy of Pootie Tang, I rented it from Mike's Video in State College, PA, who was known for their strict punishment when it came to last fees and lost movies. I had already been in a situation where a friend of mine never returned movies that he said he would when I left to go home for summer. I came back in the fall and the movies were still in his house. I pled with them and ended up paying less than they asked originally, but I still had a pretty hefty fine.

Well apparently I didn't learn my lesson, because right when I was about to return Pootie Tang, I lent it to a friend who, although none of us really knew it at the time, turned out to be a huge liar/shady dude. He told me that he had returned it to the video store, but after a week or two I got a call from the manager at Mike's Video saying that I needed to return Pootie Tang to the store. I said my friend already returned it. He said they didn't have the video. I approached my friend and asked him about it and he assured me that he had returned it to the store. He went back and "showed one of the workers a receipt." I got a call from the manager a few days later saying that he was told by one of his employees that my friend had shown the receipt, but he needed to see it personally. I told my friend this, and he said that he threw it away after he showed it to the employee.

Now, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what happened here. My friend had not returned the movie, but he had a friend at the store who agreed to say that he or she had seen the receipt, and the manager didn't believe him or her, for obvious reasons. At the time I was torn between that scenario and actually trusting this friend. The lesson in all this, don't trust your friends (JK! LOL!).

The situation just kind of petered out because we didn't have a receipt to show and they still didn't have a movie. Then I got a subpoena for theft of property. I really really wish that I had kept this document, or at least kept better track of it. Actually written on my State College, PA, issued subpoena was that I had stolen Pootie Tang. I'm pretty sure that I am the only person in the world who has ever been issued a subpoena with the words "Pootie Tang" contained within it. I was required to attend court and pay about $200 in fines. Um, could I remind you that that's for Pootie Tang, co-starring Reg E. Cathey (a.k.a. Norman Wilson from "The Wire") as Dirty Dee ("I need to be dirty because I'm Dirty Dee, damnit!").

Unfortunately, I had to go to Pittsburgh for some reason on the day of my court date, so I sent another friend of mine (this one much more trustworthy) to court for me. I called the officer in charge of the case and arranged to meet him in the front row of the courtroom (which I had already attended for other reasons the year before). I gave my friend the money for the fine and they made the exchange with no suspicion raised. I had to go to the police station a few weeks later to get fingerprinted and have my mugshot taken. For Pootie Tang. If anyone can furnish me with copies of these documents, I'd be forever grateful.

One would think that the story ended there, but this little offense popped up once again while I was on tour. Trying to get into Canada (this was just before they made it mandatory for you to furnish a passport), we were stopped and asked to attend the desk inside. They ran our licenses and up came my theft of property charge, and so I had to explain that the charge was for a movie not returned in college. Pootie Tang, in fact, was the name of that movie, officer. And then again trying to go to Nova Scotia for a family biking vacation, which I had already missed a flight for the day before. Well, you see Ms. Customs Officer, in college....