About Jon & Kate ...

... leave them alone!
Please America, I'm begging you. For the love of all things holy and for the sanity and security of those eight innocent children, leave those people alone.
Yea, yea, yea. How dare I say leave reality TV stars alone? Because I believe it. So what they have a TV show on - cable TV. They are still entitled to their problems and issues in life but they DO NOT have a right to have their business and issues on front street for all the world to see.
First off, I am an avid viewer of the show. I think it's interesting to see such a young couple have so many children with so many different personalities deal with it all.
Secondly, I don't give a crap if they walk around with their own cameras filming -ish and putting it up on YouTube, who are we (America) to be judging anybody for what they are doing or not doing?!
OK, let me back up. Jon and Kate Gosselin married in 1999 after two years of dating. They experienced some fertility problems and they had trouble conceiving. They tried fertility drugs and long story short, they have eight children out of two pregnancies.
The had a set of twins first, Mady and Cara and later sextuplets, Aaden, Alexis, Joel, Hannah, Colin and Leah. TLC first approached them about doing a special on their unique family that turned into two specials and eventually a TV show. The show will begin its fifth season this summer and now we fast forward to their issues.
For the past five years, we've heard accusations about Kate's quirks and her need to clock Jon every few minutes. Regardless of the situation, they still appear to be a semi-functional family who is just trying to make it. Granted they thrust themselves into the public spotlight with that show but who can blame them for trying to make a little bit of change? They got eight kids to feed.
They have their issues right now with their relationship. Kate is claiming infidelity on Jon's part and he on hers. But the bottom line is people deal with these issues everyday - off camera. Why can't we give him the same luxury?
I think Michael Jackson said it best.

Another one bites the dust

Well, another one is over. Another fabulously wonderful television show has ended and again, I am verklempt.
In case you have been living under a rock or your cable company is homophobic, like mine, and doesn't offer the Logo channel, the show I am referring to is "RuPaul's Drag Race."
First of all, this show has two of my most favorite things in the world, gay guys and reality show competition. I think the general idea was to make this "America's Next Top Model" meets "The Crying Game." Regardless, I effin' loved it!
RuPaul has always been FIERCE. In the show, we got a chance to see him in and out of drag. Personally, I like to see him in drag. Call me crazy but I somehow feel good about knowing that he has to put all that work into something I was born with! *sticks tongue out* Take that, Loca!
Like all reality TV shows, there are the stereotypes, all of them are gay so that one doesn't apply. What I liked about this one is that there were two people in that b$%tch role who played it very well. Then of course there's the minority, here though, there were a few and I liked that. The one you really rooted for but could never get it right. The weird one, the whiner who got on my good nerve and the one who smoothed things over.
I'm telling ya'll, this show was awesome!!!
For so long, all I ever knew about drag queens came from RuPaul, who we really didn't know, and the movie "Wigstock." Both were pioneering for drag performers, but I think this was a step in the right direction to have drag performers be humanized.
So much of what they do is illusion and make-up and wigs and a lot of people tend to see them as fake people who feel like they are stuck in the wrong body. This show challenged that and became, dare I say, pioneering?
While there was a whole lot of Tom Foolery going on, there were a lot of issues brought up like HIV/AIDS, poverty and homophobia. All of these things need to be discussed on a huge stage and I commend RuPaul and the show's other producers for giving us this awesomely entertaining show.
To all the performers - Victoria , Tammie, Akasha, Jade, Ongina, Shanelle, Rebecca, Nina and especially the winner Bebe Zahara Benet, you all made my Monday nights. And best of all, you didn't eff it up!

Picture is property of Logo.

Must See TV

I know that it is no secret that I watch a lot of television. I have to put you guys up on a great new series on my new favorite channel TV One.
First off, they've got all the great reruns of some of my favorite shows like "Martin," "Living Single," "Good Times" and "Roc." They also play some great movies starring wonderful black actors of the past and present.
In addition to all of that, they manage to put on awesome shows like their latest series, "Unsung." Let me just go on record as saying this is the best musical documentary series I have ever seen. Don't get me wrong, I like "Behind the Music" and all, but these shows are just better to me.

The title says it all, they are highlighting the careers and lives of some of the most unsung artists in music. From what I gather from the website and the shows, there are four episodes thus far. The first was about the incomparable Clark Sisters from music mecca Detroit.
I did a post during Black Music Month talking about how much their music has really touched me in my life. Being a fan< I only saw what was on the surface< I had no idea that they had such a fascinating story.
Of course I knew their historic gospel music lineage through their mother, Mattie Moss Clark, and I knew that they'd split to work on solo projects. I had no idea about all the things they endured just to get the music out.
In fact, the same can be said for Donny Hathaway and DeBarge. Their episodes came on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. If you guys have TV One in your area, I strongly encourage you to watch these shows. I hope they make it apart of the weekly line-up, I would love to see stories on The O'Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Babyface and so many others..

It's been nearly three weeks ...

... since I posted last and I'm not even going to give you an explanation. I will say that a lot has happened since I posted last so let's get right down to it.

First off, did you all have the opportunity to catch any of the episodes of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta?" I hope so. I don't often get sucked into reality TV but this was too good to pass up.


L to R: Lisa Wu Hartwell, Deshawn Snow, Kim Zolciak, Nene Leakes and Sheree Whitfield

Ya'll, this show has everything I enjoy in a TV show - comedy, drama, a villain - you name it, it's in the show.

For those of you who don't know, this is the latest installment of Bravo's "The Real Housewives ..." series. Bravo just premiered the fourth season of "The Real Housewives of Orange County" and they had an installment of The Real Housewives of New York."

Much like many TV shows, there was not much, if any, representation of African Americans on Bravo's original programming. So of course when they extended the series to ATL, you know the majority of them were going to be of the African American persuasion.

Anyway, this is the best reality TV show I have seen since the second season of "The Real World." I love it and I loved the reunion show even more. I don't know who cast this show but they did an outstanding job of it.
I will so be waiting for next season because this show made Tuesday nights worth turning on the TV. It also made me thankful for my situation. So, as a treat to you for being gone so long, here's a clip from the show.
Enjoy!