Reality Out of Sync

Between Tyler Perry, BET, and movies that Hollywood produces like Precious I am just about sick of black television and movies. I’ll start with Tyler Perry. I just am not seeing the talent. Slapstick comedy about black households should be the last thing blacks should be seeing in theatres or on television. The Cosby Show was a good comedy, that gave pretty decent examples (for that time period) on how an affluent black lifestyle may or should be. It was genuinely funny, and it wasn’t mirroring really abusive behavior that occurs in many of our black households then nor today. Oh, I’ve worked in the health care field, yes abuse is still rampant in black communities whether it’s perpetrated by family members or simple black on black (non-family) violence in our ghettos and neighborhoods. I don’t know Tyler Perry, and I know many people that enjoy his work – I don’t know why – maybe they’ll come explain that sort of thing to me here; however, I really believe/think he shouldn’t feed and perpetuate what I view as really poor black behavior in such a light hearted way.

BET – oh how I loathe thee. BET has some of the w0rst programming known to man. You’d think that BET would at least be willing to air shows that do not stereotype the black male or the black condition, that we wouldn’t have shows such as Teen Summit, which aired real issues faced by real black teens concerning violence, sexual education, peer pressure and so on canceled. Alas, that’s not that case. On Sunday you can be sure to have gospel being shown though. I’m not really sure about the blacks outside of those I know, but Gospel isn’t something I’m very familiar with or even identify with. It certainly doesn’t target the 18-34 year old demographic that I can tell, unless they are actively being raised in a heavy handed elderly black household. I know of one such house in which some children are being raised this way, and I’m fairly certain they aren’t terribly happy.  I actually fall in that 18-34 year old demographic, and I gotta tell you I certainly don’t find much of the programming on BET even remotely interesting or entertaining.

And then there’s Precious. I’m sure Precious is a good movie, but it’s also just another example of helping white people feel good about themselves for having gone to see it. What I mean by this, is that many whites seem to behave in the fashion that by going to see (and I guess become informed about the “black struggle” as it were) movies that put on zoo like display abusive black environments, that they are some how helping the inequality in this country. That’s not true, you knowing that a majority of blacks live in poorer conditions than your average white family does not do anything to help Junebug learn that getting an education will get him out of the hood, not clinging to gang life to try and survive and playing basketball in the hopes of making it to the NBA.

To put an end cap on this. Blacks need to actively seek better, not mimic the white condition. Blacks can’t afford to let BET tell them what is good (because BET doesn’t fucking know, and you need to get an education I guess in order to understand that). Blacks can’t have role models in the NBA/NFL/etc.  or in Hollywood, because those places aren’t where you should be seeking anything healthy in your life.

I’m a believer in the idea that bad things happen to good people. I’m also a believer that people make decisions that bring about the bad things that happen to them. Of course, that’s not always true, other people make decisions that bring about bad things to others. In this case, it’s the former. I think. How it was explained to me seems to be the case.

I have a friend that I don’t talk to very often, but if I needed something from him he’d help me out I think. His name is Lorne, and his sister is someone that introduced me to the band Filter. She is actually the one that showed me (in an indirect way) that we don’t have to believe or settle into the stereotypes that people expect of us. I believe it’s because her mother was a positive influence in her creativity and she was/is also a generally good mother. Lorne’s sister’s name is Danielle, and she was in a car accident a few weeks ago. Her mother was unable to contact me to inform me of this incident but I heard the story of what happened. Bad things happen to good people, and although Danielle survived the car accident, she’s in less than stellar shape. I went to visit her Sunday morning. She’s been paralyzed on her left side, but seems to be improving actually, and generally broken her body in interesting ways. I didn’t see the video footage, but her car turned end over end and apparently rolled as well. She struck a utility pole.

Amazingly, I work in a hospital but dislike them a great deal. I don’t like visiting people who are sick or dying. It makes me uncomfortable. It’s the smell of hospitals. They smell like death….and urine. I avoid going to patient rooms if at all possible. So, I was expecting to be uncomfortable while visiting someone that I care about a great deal, someone that helped me beat up another girl when I was in 6th or 7th grade. This is someone that I call my sister if someone asks me who she is. I avoided visiting my grandmother in the hospital if at all possible, due to the aforementioned issues. It was surprisingly pleasant though. She was talking and lucid, but she has some short term memory loss and she’s doped up (obviously). I was much relieved to see that she’d gained some motion in her left shoulder. She didn’t have that before, how she was moving it with a broken scapula though is beyond me. That morphine must be powerful stuff to move that around without looking discomfited much. Of course, if she has no real sensation over on that side, it makes sense.

The point of this post? There isn’t one I guess. Maybe I’m venting because I don’t feel like talking directly to anyone. Danielle was driving on very little sleep and she thinks (although she honestly can’t remember) she fell asleep. That’s unfortunate, but sometimes bad things happen to good people. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the climate in which we live our lives. I look forward to visiting her more often and (meeting her husband as well) watching her condition improve. Our hospital has some of the best facilities in the country for people. We’ll see if they can’t put their money where their mouth is, so to speak.

So, I noticed that Leesa was on vacation about the same time i was. As she stated, since we both took off at about the same time, we must be sleeping together. Trust me, that was definitely the case. The praise she laid upon me was mind boggling. Go me! ^_^

Sadly, that’s not really true. Even though Leesa is totally not my type, I’d do her. I know she’s feeling the love right about now. Anyway, I got back from the trip all in one piece. It wasn’t much to write home about, as is usually the case. My vacations never go the way people probably think they should. My vacations are the most interesting on the drive there and the drive back, or as some cases have had it the flight there and the flight back. I don’t like traveling because of the destination usually. I enjoy traveling for the arrival and departure!

Now, let me preface this with the fact that I have been to Florida before. I went when I was younger. Again, it wasn’t actually being in Florida that was most interesting. It was the getting there that was so entertaining. Yes, some incidents while being in the state were funny, it was all in the process of getting to where we wanted to be. You see my mother enjoys the leading driver role. She is a type A personality and so this role suits her. Well my mom has to have at least one mishap on the way. When I was a child, that mishap took place in a hotel parking lot on our way to Disney Land. She drove the front of the car over a pile-on and got us stuck. I don’t remember how we got off of that thing, but I was too weak to help my ‘already on his way to being tanked’ step father push it off. I think a tow truck was involved. My mother was excessively pissed off.

This time my mom managed to get lost by a couple of miles and that just set her off all the way. It wasn’t entirely her fault. I must admit that the signage that is on route 231 is just horrible all the way around. In one direction there are indicating signs telling you where to it branches into another direction (which it does by the way in case you’re interested), but in the opposite direction there is no sign at all. you just happily drive right on by it without cause for worry until you realize that the signs 5 miles down say nothing about still being on 231. That was special, let me tell you. So the cursing was quite extraordinary by the time my mother came to the conclusion we were going the wrong way. As a side note, my sister and I are not allowed to ride in the car with my mother. We have this nasty habit of laughing at everything and making fun of her and my step dad. Thus, we are placed in a separate vehicle with one another. Probably not the safest idea because we end up laughing so hard the driver almost causes a huge accident. Fun times.

Okay, so there isn’t a connection to Al-Qaeda (which I said a long time ago) in Iraq. Iraq did have links to some terrorist groups but channeled them at his enemies, such as exiles and Kurds and the like. Reprehensible sure, but a threat to the US, no. However, we still have WMD to go after! Kind of? Who knows. Interestingly, this isn’t about foreign soil. Well unless you count females as foreign soil, which might not be such a bad idea.

I have decided that women are weapons of mass destruction, and there must be some way to harness the potential for devastation that they possess. I am looking for volunteers to travel with me and capture some of these creatures (I know Grant’s down already) and begin tests on placing them into very large catapulting systems or missile warheads and dropping them into places where it’s difficult to subdue a population. We wait several weeks (fall out and all) and then invade. What could go wrong?!

Sadly, I don’t have anything interesting to write about today. I did notice that it feels like snow in my future. It’s grey out and dropping in temperature again. I’m saddened by this, because once again there will be the weather crippled people out driving again. I swear, every time there is a change in the weather people’s driving IQ goes down a couple notches and I’m in danger of being side swiped on a regular basis.

Happy news! I played “The Darkness” on PS3 with my son, he’s very analytical. He figures the puzzles out about as quickly as I do. If only I could get him to lower his voice, he’s got a huge set of lungs on him. I think I’m deaf on the right side now lol.