The best, most popular, and different posts of 2008 on Black Entertainment USA

For my last post of 2008 I wanted to look back and see what were some of the most popular posts I had written, and what I consider some of favorites. I know I am highly critical of things that displease me, so I thought I'd turn that same critical eye towards myself for a change.

I must say that in looking over the hundreds of posts I wrote on Black Entertainment USA alone this year, some just don't belong here. Some of the comments are far more political than anything else. And I can't use the excuse I have no where else to have said these things - I do own a political blog as well.

And I admit to having a few posts where I was just far too tired. I should have gone to sleep. Or taken that vacation all my friends have heard me speak about over the last 15 years (I've had 2 vacations in my life, none exceeding a week or involving travel). But instead I must apologize because they were really sub-par, even for a bad day.

Still overall I will say that roughly 80% or more of my posts were relevant and interesting. Many are topical and focused on the events of the day. Looking back some are not as important as I first thought they were, and others far more than I would give credit. And several posts were popular that I would not have expected to be.

Some of the top Black Entertainment USA posts of 2008, as viewed and/or commented by you my readers were:

So there is a Black guy in an elevator...
Audi television commercial says we are all not the same
OJ Simpson convicted - kangaroo court closed
OJ Simpson trial - injustice unreported
The new 90210 - is it cancelled yet?
NASCAR, Mauricia Grant, and my opinion
Is Robert Downey Jr funny as an African American?
Duane ‘Dog’ Chapman to return to cable television
VH1’s Top 100 of rap music celebrates the positives of the genre

It's an interesting group of posts indeed. And I think that I got it right in those posts. Not that everyone agreed with my view, just that they felt something after reading it. And that ultimately is one of my goals.

But I looked over the entire year and I saw a couple of other posts that I thought were very important, and/or meant something to me directly. Not all of them were relevant, given, but they said something important. And I want to present them again. Again you may not agree with my view, but I hope my top 10 will motivate some reaction. [Oh since 3 of my top 10 are in the above list that you my readers have found of interest, I will substitute 3 others]

NJ considers apology for slavery (part 1, 2, 3, 4)
Tiger Woods comment impacts Dr. Martin Luther King birthday (part 1, 2)
President Bush and Darfur now - not the movie
R Kelly - next stop Neverland Ranch
Janet Jackson: Intelligence, success, and fame are not enough
Black Americans - commodity, criminals, or something much more
Do you know enough about the 2008 Presidential election?
1st Annual Memorial Pig Roast for Madden A. Cordero - please read and donate if you can
50 cent sells a new opiate to the masses
Movie Review Iron Man

I also found the time to champion a couple of other causes that aren't the most popular or widely held:
Boycott 33 variations - Hanoi Jane Fonda
Levi's 501 jeans - promoting HIV and AIDS?

Found a video on Youtube I really liked - Try This with an Xbox360 or PS3 - and one I though was an abysmal joke - Snoop Dogg in Country Music: a bad experiment

And I achieved a great step forward for my company as well:
M V Consulting, Inc and TV One Announce Collaboration - Press Release
Introducing the first 2009 model Ashley

And of course I found the time to pick a fight:
Viacom (and maybe Jon Stewart) doesn't like Black Entertainment USA. Maybe.

So I wasn't just speaking about entertainment this year. But considering all the things that were going on, all the changes, and the things I felt mattered, I think I covered a lot of what you wanted to read about.

In 2009 I will try to stay on point a bit more. But as always I will share with you my thoughts and views about the important topics affecting all our lives as well as our entertainment. And I always look forward to your comments [yes even the dissenting views that are thought out beyond just cursing me out] about what I present.

2008 has been a tough year, no matter what country race or whatever you may be. 2009 will be different, and I hope that all of my readers, and those that will become my readers, their families and friends will share in a prosperous and peaceful year.

Eva Mendes - the new Janet Jackson?

So Eva Mendes has committed the mortal Hollywood sin of exposing a breast on television – in a commercial for Calvin Klein for all of… an intolerable 1 second. Considering the outrage expressed against Janet Jackson – for her earth shattering 2.3 seconds, and the subsequent blacklisting of the entertainer, I have only one question:

**The following video is so tame as to be even less of an issue than when Diana Ross played with Eve’s breast on national TV. But this is the banned commercial.**



So this means that Eva Mendes should not get any work in movies and/or television and will be ostracized by the major media, right?

Janet Jackson: Intelligence, success, and fame are not enough

Over the weekend I noticed something and I doubt many have spoken on it. Janet Jackson was in the news again about her Super Bowl costume issue. It seems that after years of comments and threats by the FCC, the whole thing is now passed over as if it never happened.

Isn’t that interesting. CBS will receive no fine

“This is an important win for the entire broadcasting industry because it recognizes that there are rare instances, particularly during live programming, when it may not be possible to block unfortunate fleeting material, despite best efforts," the CBS Network, which had the misfortune of unwittingly broadcasting the Super Bowl debacle, issued in a statement.”

Justin Timberlake, who committed the act of infamy, has walked away from this scandal without ever being touched by it. The fact that he may have caused the problem in the manner he removed the cloth was never his fault. His career, whatever you may think of it, has continued unabated.

But Janet Jackson has been mired with this scandal. She has effectively become blackballed by the media and entertainment industries. Did anyone notice that she had an album out recently? Now Janet Jackson has had so-so albums, and mega-hits, but in her entire career I have never known her to release an album and not hear any of the songs, nor see/read commentary about it. Her worst album (before the latest) sold more records than most entertainers on a good day.

The media just can’t let go of less than 15 seconds of footage. The mostly bare single breast of this Black woman is just that powerful I suppose. I have to imagine that were both breasts to have been bared, half the population of America would have died. I mean that’s the way the media and a few fringe fanatical groups seem to act.

But is that fair?

Hmmm, CBS promotes the UFC – which is a violent sport. Unlike boxing it has no elegance, it’s just about raw power. That has to be good for the kids. I'm sure the soap operas that were the staple of CBS and broadcast television, with more breasts and ass appearing than some soft-core porn, really has to be good for kids in the afternoon.

And the entertainment media loves women. I mean look at the attention poured all over Britney Spears as she has desperately tried to implode. She went to rehab for as long as it take me to piss, then cuts off her hair. Mega-news story. I’m sure it inspired many drug addicts, and more than a few young girls, to try a new fashion design. That’s positive.


There is the insanely untalented Paris Hilton. Bad porno tape, can’t act, can’t sing, can’t even open her glove box to see the letter telling her she can’t drive. But she is insanely rich. So rich that she almost pulled off a get out of jail card. If she has a positive to impart on the American public I am still unaware of it.


Anna Nicole Smith, drug addict (possibly while pregnant), promiscuous, arguably lecherous, with a sole talent being she had a great body. Months were devoted to her death at the near exclusion of all other news and facts at the time. Literally I do not recall another story that has been on the news that much – hours of news hours dedicated to a woman that was about as important as wet paper. Seriously, even Britney Spears has more talent. Message to kids – if you have the right curves you can get money and no one will care how many drugs you take. If you are a guy, either make a lot of money for this kind of girl to take, or be sleazy enough to leech money from her drug-addled ass.


Lindsey Lohan, the drunken party girl that was desperately trying to end her movie career. After years of building up a host of fans that were not old enough to appreciate talent, Lohan was more than happy to drink herself into oblivion. Her quick trips to rehab were only slightly longer than Spears, but thankfully she had her mom to lean on while she drank and did drugs.

Amy Winehouse, the reported crack addict with a voice. So deep into drugs and alcoholism that she couldn’t perform and has been arrested multiple times. And she doesn’t care what anyone thinks because she told us that. At least her man is just as deranged and besodden as her, so it’s a match set in love and not money.

I could go on, but what are the similarities of these women?

They are all White, they all are being promoted and covered by the media (thus making them all money), and they all have been filmed, photographed and discussed ad nausea since Janet Jackson was at the Super Bowl.

So was the outrage that Janet Jackson’s accidental exposure occurred, or was it something else. None of the women I mentioned have half her talent or longevity in entertainment. Janet is not on drugs, does not cover magazines drunk or in scandals (other than the one event). She has never been linked to anything negative that I can recall. And no one questions her ability to think and do business – she broke all records for an artist contract that even her brother did not match at one time.

In fact she should be a role model for young women, proving that women (especially Black women) beside Oprah and Maya Angelou can succeed on their own doing what they are best at. Yet she his blacklisted and blackout by the media in favor of women who are such messes I can’t imagine most of them surviving to be 35.

So what’s wrong with the major media? What’s going on in the entertainment industry? What the hell are Hollywood and music execs thinking?

I tell you what, if I had a daughter – or were it one of my nieces – and the worst moment in a career she made that garnered her tens of millions of dollars, fame, and comfort over decades was the momentary equivalent of her dress slipping I’d be happy for her. No drugs, no scandals, no court taking away her children because she is unfit as a mother, no drunken binges and car accidents that could kill innocents, no crimes, no whispers of anorexia, never selling her body for money.

Seriously ask yourself this question, which woman would you want your daughter, sister, niece, or mother to emulate? Then ask why being Black, successful, talented, and intelligent is worthy of a media excommunication?