“Sometimes I’ll start a sentence and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way. Like an improv conversation. An improversation.” –Michael Scott, The Office
“What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany’s at midnight. Do I go for the vault? no. I go for the chandelier. it’s priceless. as I’m taking it down a woman catches me. she tells me to stop. it’s her fathers business. she’s tiffany. I say no. we make love all night. in the morning the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada. I don’t trust her. besides I don’t like the cold. thirty years later I get a postcard. I have a son. and he’s the chief of police. this is where the story gets interesting. I tell tiffany to meet me in Paris by the troccodero. she’s been waiting for me all these years. she’s never taken another lover. I don’t care. I don’t show up. I go to Berlin. that’s where I stashed the chandelier”. –Dwight Schrute, The Office
Category: reading TV
At some point soon, I plan to extol the greatness of the writing on The Simpsons, the best cartoon, let’s say, ever.
Mapple Rep: I see you’re admiring our MyCube. It’s fueled by dreams and powered by imagination.
Homer: What does it do?
Mapple Rep: You should ask yourself what can it do for you.
Homer: Okay. [To MyCube] What can I do for you?? Please, I’m begging you!
Mapple Rep: Sir, it’s not even turned on yet.
Homer: But it’s glowing…
Mapple Rep: That light confirms that it’s off.
Some people like to say people don’t change. Ever. But that’s impossible. People do. Always.
T-Bag (that’s his name) is a complex character on Prison Break, my favorite show alive since my favorite show retired. A horrible terrible no good very bad guy from the start, T-Bag has been developing a conscience over the past season or so. Early on in the latest episode, he says he’s “a prisoner of my own identity. To hell with it, we are who we are right?”
He’d been posing as a salesman named Cole Phiefer (sp?) and getting heavily into assuming this other man’s identity, washing away his sins by becoming someone else. At the same time that he was embracing his new face, though, he was also still doing hoodrat stuff. After all, him taking this man’s identity in the first place was all part of a bigger scheme to stack millions. It seemed like he was getting comfy. He could get used to this.
Which brings me to this week’s episode. T-Bag has a gun to a man he’s really not sure is a Bible salesman (like he says he is) or a bad guy sent to kill him. Normally T-Bag would have no problem just shooting the dude. No regrets. Usually you can predict the actions of your favorite TV characters based on prior behavior. But here, they really had me wondering. Shoot to kill or no?
He doesn’t (after much tearful begging on the Bible dude’s end). He says, “I want you to go. I want you to be free. Be as free as me.” He also lets the woman he’s holding hostage go, as well as her daughter: “You get in that car and you drive far far away from here right now.” It was kinda emotional if you’ve followed T-Bag from his raping a woman to torturing innocent civilians to straight up eating a Mexican guy he’d just killed (he was hungry). People change.
I’d like to say things worked out for T-Bag in the end. But, well, turned out the guy actually wasn’t a Bible salesman. Oops. lol. Guess sometimes change is bad.
The Game, one of my favorite shows on television, is extremely funny, with characters that feel like real people…black people…just, people…and is well written. here, a woman in her hospital bed offers wise words to Melanie (Tia Mowry), her doctor.
Woman: “Oh so you’re a Side Part Under.”
Melanie: “‘Scuse me?”
“Oh, you know how we Black women do. Part our hair on the side, then curl it under. Been clinging to it since the hot comb was invented. It’s safe. And reliable. And no one’s ever gonna comment on it. It screams, ‘Oh please don’t look at me, I’m too scared to change my hairstyle, let alone live.’”
“Oh…I’m not scared to live, okay. You just caught me on an off day. I just carried on a secret three-week affair with my supervisor. And I’ve slept with four men. In one year. I’m wild.”
“Oh great. Your crotch isn’t a Side Part Under. It’s more than sex. It’s an attitude. It’s… ooh, it’s a way of life.”
“Hmmm…hmm…”Besides Wentworth Miller’s sexy quotient, the other great thing about Prison Break is its ability to make you suspend your belief and still believe. Unfortunately, the previous season wasn’t that gripping–the gang, led by Miller’s Michael Scofield, ended up in a heavily secure Panama prison called Sona and well, to sum it up, the lieutenant (?) from The Wire who started that whole Hamsterdam experiment played a Jamaican inmate overlord. This season’s bad actor is Michael Rappaport, who I guess fits into the show perfectly since you have to suspend your belief that he’s a good actor. Thank goodness this season is going better than last. I won’t say the writing is great (The Wire remains my favorite TV series ever in that department), but as sure as Joe Biden gets Botox injections, Prison Break is the ish. Mondays at 9pm ET.
“What makes this so much damned fun are bright exteriors, crisp cutting, outrageous action sequences, and, most of all, the acting ensemble. I especially enjoy William Fichtner as Alex Mahone — Fichtner’s probably the best character actor on TV. These guys play it straight, so the audience does the same. There’s also a crazy existential subtext: No matter what these hapless escapees do or how fast they run, they always end up…booya!…back in prison.” (Stephen King: Why I Love ‘Prison Break’)
I watch I Think I Love My Wife every time it comes on HBO…was hilarious-er than I expected. This “Kill the Messenger” special (not as funny as his previous ones) will be on YouTube soon enough.
“The Black man gotta flyyyyy to get something the white man could walk to!”
“Fat girls could say whatever they want to about skinny girls… ‘Salad eating motherf-cka!’ But skinny girls can’t talk about fat girls. That’s just mean. ‘Look at these big bitches. Do they freebase gravy?’“
“Last year the NAACP had a funeral for the word ‘ni–a.’ Well tonight is Easter.”
“It’s just sad to see a White person try to do a ‘ni–a’-less rendition of a Dr. Dre song… but I know when I’m not there, they leanin to that shit.”
“Some people have jobs. Some people have careers. The people with careers need to learn to shut the f-ck up when you around people with jobs.”
“Women never want us to have a good time. Never, ever, ever, ever…”
“Fellas if you lose your job, you lose your woman. She may not leave the day you do it…but the countdown has begun.”
Tonight on BET, R. Kelly gave his first public interview since being found innocent (?!) of child pornography. All 14 counts. (All of them) Toure did the questioning. Guilty in the court of public opinion, maybe. Still making dope songs, yes. See: 12 Play Fourth Quarter.
Toure: Do you like teenage girls?
R. Kelly: [Pause] When you say teenage, how old are we talking? [In other words, that depends what the meaning of the word "is" is]
Toure: Girls who are teenagers…
R. Kelly: 19?
Toure: 19 and younger.
R. Kelly: …I have some 19 year old friends. But I don’t like anybody illegal if that’s what we’re talking about–Underage…
[...]
Toure: So this is over? Last time talking about it, and this won’t happen again, is that what you’re saying?
R. Kelly: [Smirk] This interview will never happen again.
“Freaky Sensation”
I’m not going to defend why I watch BET’s Baldwin Hills. I refuse to call it a guilty pleasure–it’s an innocent pleasure. I know it’s scripted. And with the lack of real emotions these kids show, Keanu Reeves must be directing them or something. Still, I keep viewing and unfortunately now I’m invested in these characters’ “lives.” That photo up there is Moriah and Gerren in happier times (they broke up. sigh) Below is an interesting scene from last week’s episode. Seiko and Justin (both newcomers to the cast. this is the second season, keep up.) are about to go out for sushi. She brings Justin into her home to meet her father, who’s a sheriff. This is why I love dads. And this. I love that show (the Cosby one) so much.
Justin: How you doin?
Dad: I’m good, how you doin?
Justin: Fine, I’m Justin.
Dad: Justin? Mr. Hoffman. Have a seat.
Justin: Okay.
[Justin has a seat.]
Dad: you can take your hat off.
[Justin takes his hat off]
Dad: You in college or what?
Justin: Um I attended college. I–
Dad: [interrupts] Where you work?
Justin: Uh, Faithful Central Bible Church
Dad: Oh [Dad lights his cigar and starts smoking] You don’t mop the floor do you?
Justin: Um, nah…
Dad: You like basketball?
Justin: Yes, sir
Dad: I don’t.
Justin: Okay.
Dad: Where’s your car? Out in front?
Justin: Yes, sir.
Dad: What are you driving?
Justin: Uh, Charger.
Dad: Yours?
Justin: Uh, yes, sir.
Dad: You okay?
Justin: Ah, im perfectly fine…
Dad: Yeah. [Pause] Yeah. So you uh, you haven’t been downtown have you Justin? For traffic tickets, stuff like that?
Justin: Uh, robbery.
Dad: What?!
[Commercial break]
Dad: So you served time in the county, is that what you’re saying?
Justin: Uh…
Seiko: Daddy I think we have to go now.
Dad: Uh I don’t think you have to go just yet. I think James and I have some things to talk about.
Seiko: Daddy, Justin.
Dad: Justin.
