Category Archives: television

Brief Book Review: Post-HipHoppers

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This brand-new book occupies the intellectual space between Kevin Powell’s essay collections and Bakari Kitwana’s seminal work.

M.K. Asante, Jr., a filmmaker, poet and college professor, adds his name to the list of young (under 45 🙂 ) Blacks who’ve written works that seek to combine journalism, personal essays and contemporary history, using hiphop of the point of departure. He is an optimistic self-described “artivist,” a 26-year-old writing to inspire younger people who will pick up this book because of its title. It’ll be their text for Black Contemporary Socio-Political Development 101, and believe me, they need it.

Get this book for the teenager (or college-aged young adult) in your life and make him or her read it. Then make him or her look up all of the authors he mentions.

Must-See? No! Fun? YES!

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

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There were SO many ways to mess up a “Knight Rider” revived series, and they failed to mess it up! Last night was on fire! Literally, if you count the first 10 minutes. 🙂

(I missed the backdoor pilot that aired earlier this year. Dang. Had I known it was this good……)

Written by folks who’ve clearly seen at least one episode of “Star Trek” and “Torchwood,” the series premiere was fun and exciting from beginning to end, with the same tone as, say, “Iron Man.”

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Trailer Time!

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Black Panther

Although I will never be a fan of Reginald Hudlin’s first arc (see my comments at the bottom of this link), I admit this trailer (check the interview below it)—a word-for-word, scene-for-scene adaptation of that story’s first few pages—had me quite excited.

He’s greatly improved (I really liked BP 38), but to be honest, I’ve always thought that Hudlin’s Panther work would make better movies and television than comics. But I think it’s more about me being too old to read modern Marvel Comics. Judging by the first issue, the writer who replaced Hudlin for the current arc made the BET exec seem literary in comparison. 🙂

CONGRATS To………

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

…..my nephew Andrew Burroughs Jr., who is being honored this week by the Newark Black Film Festival. His film won the Long Narrative Competition. The award, the 2008 Paul Robeson Award, is being presented by Paul Robeson Jr.

JULY 30th UPDATE: My nephew tells me last night Mr. Robeson is sick, so Richard Wesley is doing the honors. Get well soon, Mr. Robeson.

P.S. In an unrelated note, enjoyed this NPR story on Kevin Powell’s Congressional run. Congrats to you too, K.P.

P.P.S. More unrelated: Congrats to Pacifica’s “Democracy Now!” and NPR’s “Tell Me More” for actually covering what Obama said at “Unity” about reparations, et. al.

The Man I Loved To Hate

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

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Way, way back when I thought that one day (today) I’d be a famous pundit, I looked forward to locking horns with right-wingers like Tony Snow. His end-of-show commentaries on “Fox News Sunday” never failed to make my teeth grit and shout obscenities at the screen. I looked forward to him one day attacking me by name, seeing it as a badge of honor.

Cat was born to be White House Press Secretary. He should have been in that role for the whole eight years. Bush would’ve been able to lie better.

While watching coverage of his death, I was sincerely moved by the great love he had for his family. So I wish that family well in its time of grief.

The Death Of The Magazine, The Birth Of The Magazine

Posted on by drumsintheglobalvillage

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I like “NOVAScienceNOW,” even though I’m not hosting it. 🙂 Believe me, that’s high praise. It’s clear we’re in the Golden Age of the Magazine—the BROADCAST magazine. I’m happy that I can listen to three national Black(ish) radio newsmagazines in a week, watch the NOVA spinoff show every summer and check out what the brother’s doing on “History Detectives,” but it’s hard to let the dream go of working full-time for a national (Black) general interest magazine. (Aside: It’s really too bad that too many of these broadcast magazines don’t have full-time [or sometimes any!] correspondents.) Soon it’ll be time for the local library to get my Gordon Parks autobiographies, I guess.

What's Deliberate?

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Okay. A work of satire. I get it. Confront the enemy directly, blah, blah, blah…….. But boy, some folks are really upset! I got a relative who wants to [CENSORED] The New Yorker building!

The news media pretend it’s hard to tell a deliberate slam from a sham these days. For instance, The Reverend Nutslicer. Does anyone other than me believe Jackson Sr. purposely made his “gaffe” so that white moderates in swing states would be more comfortable voting for Obama in November? Saying what he said while wired to a FOX News microphone? C’mon……..

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I mean, how upset could Jackson really be about what Obama said (and repeated last night), since The Good Reverend has said the exact same things for years and years? (I never forgot how, in the 1990s, Jackson Sr., discussing crime in the Black community, publicly talked about how relieved he now was to discover that the person walking down the street at night right behind him was white.) I mean, the fact that his son is going to get Obama’s Senate seat (and didn’t Jesse Jr. set the speed record for responses? 😉 ) has nothing to do with allathis, right? 🙂

I Don't Watch "The Simpsons"……….

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…..so I’ll leave it to the audience as to whether this episode of “Click & Clack’s As The Wrench Turns,” the new “Car Talk” animated series I saw over the weekend, is borderline racist. I know that if I was from India I’d be getting tired of this kind of thing. And what’s up with every person of color in the garage sounding like they escaped from 1970s network sitcoms?