more randoms
Until my next caper or epiphany...you'll be stuck reading these random thoughts...
-- There's a tiled platform in my parents living room. It also has two arched six or seven foot mirrors. Whenever little ones come over the build they stand in front of it and perform for themselves. One of my lil sis' close friends has a daughter that attends the school she teaches at and sometimes she comes home with P and waits at the build for her Mom to pick her up. If I'm home she heads right for my iPod, asks for me to switch it to Beyonce and then spends her time in front of the mirrors in, what I'm sure, is her fantasy world where she is Beyonce.
Today the stakes were raised, though. As I said, my sis works for the schools, so she has summers off. During this time, she has volunteered to periodically watch my cousin Halima's daughters, Tatyana and Imani. They just spent the last 20 minutes putting on Cheetah Girls performances for P and I. I'm talking rehearsed renditions where they take turns singing portions of each verse and dance choreographed moves. Its special stuff. Theyre two years apart, 9 and 7, and remind me of my little brothers at that age. Except, instead of performing Cheetah Girls routines, my lil brothers were splitting globes in half, putting them in the back of the sweatshirts and performing Ninja Turtles fight scenes.
I didnt have a brother my age, so there wasnt any of that from me when I was younger, nor my sisters since they were 4 years apart. But when you're close in age and the same gender, you become like one person. Lil Mani said something revealed something very telling a moment ago when she stormed in the living room and pouted on the stage in front of the mirror. She said, "Vince, tell Tatyana to let me play the piano with her." Taty was in the foyer, bangin out some keys and crooning. I told Mani to let Taty have her time on piano and then she could play after her. Mani said: "But she dont sound right by herself. And I dont wanna play by myself neither." I asked why not. She said "We only sound right together." Like I said, one person. Taty is getting to that age where she's gonna want to be an individual, though. I dont rememeber when that happened with my lil brothers, but it was def before Chrish hit his teens. By that time, I could no longer expect for them to perform "Da Mystery of Chessboxin" (which would include Adam taking a squirt of his puffer and bloqin it out like weed smoke). Those were indeed the days.
-- speaking of my lil cousins. They watch a alot of Nickolodeon. Hannah Montana seems to be their favorite. Its basically a show about two teenage white girls that sing. What's important is that Billy Ray Cyrus plays their father. Whats more important is that they think Billy Ray Cyrus is cool. This just amused me. I'm struggling to figure if there was a sitcom figure of my youth that was a complete and disastrous cornball during my parents days. I cant imagine so. Its all disorienting.
-- speaking of Nickolodeon, do you realize how many programming options these kids have today? They have like three Disney channels with cartoons and sitcoms designed for them specifically, plus the Cartoon Network and a few others. Its crazy. Back in my day we had a few after school cartoons and Saved By The Bell....and Double Dare. remember that? And during the summer I watched David and the Gnomes and The Monkeys. Remember the Monkeys? I would actually buy that as a DVD if I could.
-- I'm on a TV kick right now and as such, I gotta talk about HBO for a moment. Have you seen the glut of new shows that'll be premiering this year. It must be something like 10 and NONE of them are based around black characters. this kills me. You mean not ONE pilot where the central characters were black or hispanic passed through HBO brass? Of course. So why wasnt any picked up as a series. There are probably a zillion answers for this, but none of them would truly be a valid reason. The most inane, trivial and weird subjects are used as a basis for dramas pitted around white characters, but chances are never taken otherwise. The reason why this frustrates me in HBO's case is because they do their shows so well. You know you'd get some well written shows with complex characters and useful dialogue, etc...instead we're forced to watch UPN or WB shows or corny FOX shows or blacks as criminals on serial crime dramas or token black doctors. it's all irritating. but whatever.
-- very quick: there's a brother in my fam's congregation that wears a ridiculously fake and tragic rug on his head. My lil bro calls him Toupe Fiasco. Yep.
-- There's a tiled platform in my parents living room. It also has two arched six or seven foot mirrors. Whenever little ones come over the build they stand in front of it and perform for themselves. One of my lil sis' close friends has a daughter that attends the school she teaches at and sometimes she comes home with P and waits at the build for her Mom to pick her up. If I'm home she heads right for my iPod, asks for me to switch it to Beyonce and then spends her time in front of the mirrors in, what I'm sure, is her fantasy world where she is Beyonce.
Today the stakes were raised, though. As I said, my sis works for the schools, so she has summers off. During this time, she has volunteered to periodically watch my cousin Halima's daughters, Tatyana and Imani. They just spent the last 20 minutes putting on Cheetah Girls performances for P and I. I'm talking rehearsed renditions where they take turns singing portions of each verse and dance choreographed moves. Its special stuff. Theyre two years apart, 9 and 7, and remind me of my little brothers at that age. Except, instead of performing Cheetah Girls routines, my lil brothers were splitting globes in half, putting them in the back of the sweatshirts and performing Ninja Turtles fight scenes.
I didnt have a brother my age, so there wasnt any of that from me when I was younger, nor my sisters since they were 4 years apart. But when you're close in age and the same gender, you become like one person. Lil Mani said something revealed something very telling a moment ago when she stormed in the living room and pouted on the stage in front of the mirror. She said, "Vince, tell Tatyana to let me play the piano with her." Taty was in the foyer, bangin out some keys and crooning. I told Mani to let Taty have her time on piano and then she could play after her. Mani said: "But she dont sound right by herself. And I dont wanna play by myself neither." I asked why not. She said "We only sound right together." Like I said, one person. Taty is getting to that age where she's gonna want to be an individual, though. I dont rememeber when that happened with my lil brothers, but it was def before Chrish hit his teens. By that time, I could no longer expect for them to perform "Da Mystery of Chessboxin" (which would include Adam taking a squirt of his puffer and bloqin it out like weed smoke). Those were indeed the days.
-- speaking of my lil cousins. They watch a alot of Nickolodeon. Hannah Montana seems to be their favorite. Its basically a show about two teenage white girls that sing. What's important is that Billy Ray Cyrus plays their father. Whats more important is that they think Billy Ray Cyrus is cool. This just amused me. I'm struggling to figure if there was a sitcom figure of my youth that was a complete and disastrous cornball during my parents days. I cant imagine so. Its all disorienting.
-- speaking of Nickolodeon, do you realize how many programming options these kids have today? They have like three Disney channels with cartoons and sitcoms designed for them specifically, plus the Cartoon Network and a few others. Its crazy. Back in my day we had a few after school cartoons and Saved By The Bell....and Double Dare. remember that? And during the summer I watched David and the Gnomes and The Monkeys. Remember the Monkeys? I would actually buy that as a DVD if I could.
-- I'm on a TV kick right now and as such, I gotta talk about HBO for a moment. Have you seen the glut of new shows that'll be premiering this year. It must be something like 10 and NONE of them are based around black characters. this kills me. You mean not ONE pilot where the central characters were black or hispanic passed through HBO brass? Of course. So why wasnt any picked up as a series. There are probably a zillion answers for this, but none of them would truly be a valid reason. The most inane, trivial and weird subjects are used as a basis for dramas pitted around white characters, but chances are never taken otherwise. The reason why this frustrates me in HBO's case is because they do their shows so well. You know you'd get some well written shows with complex characters and useful dialogue, etc...instead we're forced to watch UPN or WB shows or corny FOX shows or blacks as criminals on serial crime dramas or token black doctors. it's all irritating. but whatever.
-- very quick: there's a brother in my fam's congregation that wears a ridiculously fake and tragic rug on his head. My lil bro calls him Toupe Fiasco. Yep.
posted by Twistinado @ 11:40 AM
2 Comments:
At 12:56 AM,
Gee said…
TV for the kids is nutts right now, but I don't think the shows are as good as the ones we had. My 4 year old niece is a huge Dora and Diego fan. Both come on Nickolodeon, but the thing is that my sister has like 4 different Nick channels so you can pretty much catch one of the shows at anytime of day...good for her, bad for TV watching adults.
The HBO thing is tragic, and I wish they would do something about that. I wonder if there really aren't any good black shows being written and shopped out there. I watch UPN, WB and the like...the black sitcoms they have usually aren't very good..Girlfriends is good, which by the way is produced by Frasier. The Will and Jada joint(All of Us) has potential but its dragged down by the obvious eye candy(Lisa Raye) who can't act to save her life. The only show that I really like in that line-up is Everybody Hates Chris..fyi..Rock is probably my favorite comedian in the game right now. But my point is, I don't know if the shows aren't being pitched or if they are being pitched and denied...cuz for the most part, everything about us seems super contrived and overdone. When was the last time you saw a movie/tv show that centered around black characters that wasn't something that you had already seen before. Like I said I don't know if its that networks wont do them or if good ones aren't being written...either way the problem is that in this american society black people are viewed by the media as caricatures, and we can only play certain rolls...we get boxed in. So even if a great show comes up and the part isn't written race specific, if that roll is out of the black actor box a black actor wont get that roll and it will go down as another white show.
-sorry about that...this was suppose to be a short response.
At 7:30 PM,
Anonymous said…
It is sad that I know this.... but actually Hannah is the only one that sings.. the other girl is her friend that keeps her secret so know one at school knows that Miley is really Hannah.... hmmm that is very sad.
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