How Can I Be Down?

   Friday night after a long day of work and an even longer evening of house cleaning that I had been neglecting for the better part of the week, I finally sat down to relax and watch the latest episode of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. This is one of my favorite shows so I was super pumped to find out that Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth McFarlane would be one of the guests on the panel. Excitement soon turned to subtle embarrassment however after I realised that Seth knows absolutely nothing about politics. This is not me being dramatic. At a certain point in the conversation he actually stopped to ask a question about what the big la di da (I'm paraphrasing of course) was about the state of Israel anyway. I swore I saw Maher roll his eyes and fire the producer after that one. And all of this could have been politely ignored if not for the fact that Seth also decided to dominate the conversation with empty calorie drivel and useless "information" that seemed to have been gleaned from his local newspaper's National section. After seeing this, I'm sure Matt Groening did a celebratory pada beret somewhere. What (to use a Family Guy reference) really grind my gears about all of this is that I have sat several times and day dreamed about what I would say on certain topics if I were ever on that show and this man because of who he is gets to take up air time with his thoughtless pontificating on current events. Not fair! I've never really been the jealous type but these are the types of Hollyweird perks that I really lust after. And speaking of which, here are two more jobs I'd love to take in Hollywood...


 "Celebrity" Dream Decoder-

  There's this show on the BIO channel, and I don't know how long it's been around as that would involve me actually researching this silly silly thing, called Celebrity Nightmares Decoded. I titled the celebrity portion in quotations because the so-called glitterati in the episode I watched were America's Next Top Model- Cycle 1 winner Adrianne Curry and the chick that played Lisa Turtle on Saved By the Bell. I think there was also a Baldwin brother thrown in for good measure because I guess everything Hollywood produces nowadays must involve one of the Baldwin clan. So yeah... as far as reality programming goes this is on par with the Hillbilly Handfishers and those oompa loompa fist-bumpers over on MTV. Anyway, this show is awesome (If I wasn't making myself clear about that one), awesomely bad yes... but awesome none the less. As someone that has always been obsessed with my own dreams and what their meanings could be I found it impossible to flip past this show on the guide. The hostess has a super-cool job. Who wouldn't want to get paid to help Too Short work his way through his recurring nightmare of trying to make it to accept his BET Lifetime Achievement award and instead being driven to the CMT's? Jealousy! And while I'm not sure what actual training the host has, I'm sure it's not that hard to tell Dustin Diamond that his recurring dreams about being a fallen Confederate soldier are due to his unresolved feelings of being a loser. Deep down inside he always knew this anyway, right?

I googled 'douche bag' and this was the picture it returned.

  Whoevers job it is over at SNL to keep a black man down...

  I'm kidding of course! (or am I?) I'm not even sure if this job really exists but I suspect someone has been tasked with this project. Did you see the show last night? Melissa McCarthy was hilarious and new addition Taran Killam has proven himself to be far more than just a funny Eminem impersonator. Read EW's recap of the episode here. But as much as I loved last night's episode, I am a little soured to think that Jay Pharaoh is still only brought out to do impersonations and play a one-line background character. He is way funnier than this and it sucks that America is not being allowed to see his true potential. In fact, it saddens me that not since Eddie Murphy has SNL made any serious effort to showcase black talent. Sure there was Chris Rock, but he was never really given much air time and was way funnier when he was on In Living Color. Then you have Tim Meadows, Ellen Cleghorne, that guy from a few seasons ago with the afro... see what I mean here? Nobody dynamic.

Unless you count this crazy wafer.

    And now we are left with the sometimes funny but overused Kenan Thompson. Do we really need to see him play Tyler Perry, a skit that could not have been written by a black person or anybody that even hangs out with black people, and every other black person in pop culture and/or the news, male or female? It's kind of like how in seasons prior Maya Rudolph was tasked with playing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Beyonce. Are there really no funny black female comedians out there? Aisha Tyler comes to mind easily and I wasn't even really trying. I don't think it's some big conspiracy to keep black people off of SNL but if this is indeed a job, I want it. Not because of any self hate or disdain for my own people but simply because I've always wanted to stroke an albino cat in my lap and laugh maniacally.

On secong thought, let's just stick with a good ol' fashioned tabby.

---  Vanity in Peril