Tell The Truth And Shame The Devil!

I keep seeing stories surrounding Whitney Houston's death from "unnamed sources" who are speaking about Whitney's erratic behavior in the days prior to her passing.  I see reports about her finances, her declining health, how Bobby isn't being allowed near Bobbi Kristina because Whitney's family doesn't want him to try to get his hands on her money, how he's not invited to the funeral...so much is being said. 

I saw Kelly Price on GMA talking about her now infamous appearance at her pre-Grammy party celebrating Kelly's two Grammy nominations.  I saw a woman who spun so much denial it was ridiculous, saying that Whitney appeared sweaty and disheveled because she'd been there for a long time and it was hot and she'd been dancing.  Whitney came stumbling out of that party looking about as coherent as Ozzy Ozbourne on his best day dripping blood down her legs with scratches on her arms.  Story after story has come out of that party about Whitney's behavior there in the days since she passed.  It appears she got into some kind of verbal altercation with a contestant from X-Factor named Stacy Francis that may have stemmed from Francis approaching Ray J who has apparently known her for a long time.  During this altercation, reportedly she pushed pregnant R&B singer Keke Wyatt, telling her to get out of her face.

Also, during that party, she was seen drinking heavily and being belligerent.  One thing is clear:  she wasn't surrounded by the right people.  It seems as if all reports from her camp claim she was just fine in the days leading up to her death, that nothing seemed out of sorts.  Yes, she liked a drink or two but she didn't go overboard, making excuse after excuse for her behavior.  It's clear they are still in denial and making excuses for her, even after her death.  While she may not have been doing "hard drugs" as they like to call it, she was on enough pills to cause a pretty dangerous reaction if she wasn't careful.  Combine them with even a small amount of alcohol, much less how much she'd reportedly been drinking, and you get what we have here.

Then all these reports about the family blaming ex-husband Bobby Brown for her downfall and not wanting him hear Bobbi Kristina for fear of him trying to get a piece of Whitney's estate.  First, reportedly Clive Davis was paying ALL of Whitney's bills for some time prior to her death, Whitney was obviously broke.  True and sad, Whitney will be worth more now that she's gone, one look at iTunes should tell you that and Bobbi Kristina will probably end up being a very wealthy young woman in the coming years.  But she's his daughter and Whitney was a great love of his life.  I understand that everyone grieves in different ways, but to place blame on someone that you have no choice but to acknowledge in your life is just ridiculous.

Whitney was a grown woman who had an addiction long before she met Bobby Brown, in her own words.  Continuing to try to blame anyone other that the person responsible for making up her mind every day is pointless.  Whitney is still gone, drugs of some kind are probably related, and it still won't be Bobby Brown's fault or anyone else's.  What they may be better off doing is asking who let her feel like it was ok to drink as much as she was drinking taking the medications that she was taking.  The woman failed a basic physical for a FACELIFT for Heaven's sake!  She had no business drinking ANY alcohol - "a drink or two" or not! 

I keep saying it, enablers do the devil's work for him and they don't even realize it.  Unless an addict has a consequence to consider, the behavior is going to continue.  If they run out of people to get money from, if they run out of sofas to sleep on, hotels that allow them, etc., then they have other things to deal with.  If they're willing to sink low enough to getting it from the streets, then let them do it.  They can't get it if they can't get it.  I speak from experience...something I'll talk about more later.  But I do know what it's like to live with an addict and what it's like to have to deal with CONSTANT enabling from people who just want to be close to the addict no matter what it takes, not realizing they're KILLING the addict.  It ends badly, it did for my father just like it did for Whitney and Michael Jackson.  I'm not disrespecting the dead, we're talking about people I adored.  What I hope to do is shine a light on not only my take on this, but also a facet of addiction that is so often overlooked, enabling. 

Monsters Get Scarier Still

The husband of Susan Powell seems to have planning the murder of his own children for some time.  Authorities are now saying that the home he turned into a fireball and used to murder his kids was nothing more than an elaborate ruse to ward off raising red flags with the authorities.  He went so far as to furnish the home with beds for the boys, presumably for an eventual transition to overnight visits with them.   It takes a particular type of evil to dream up and carry out something like this and this goes to show that he could not have been stopped.  This guy was crazy and patient, a terrible combination.  Thankfully his body will rot in a location apart from those beautiful babies and NOT beside them a his family demanded.  I can't imaging how the Cox family will feel in the coming weeks and months as more details emerge.  I wonder if they can get his father to provide a few from the cell he's sitting in right now.  They remain in my prayers.

Goodbye Dear Whitney

I have no words that describe how I feel about the loss of the incomparable Whitney Houston this afternoon.  I can't wrap my head around the fact that she is dead.  I have adored Whitney since I first heard that incredible voice singing "You Give Good Love".  Whitney had her struggles with addiction and it's looking more and more like those struggles may have cost us her presence on this earth.  I always prayed that she would conquer her demons and start blowing us away with that voice again.  If anything good can come of this, I hope that it shines an even brighter light on addiction, particularly how dangerous enablers are to an addict.  Maybe someone out there will check themselves into rehab because of this.  I really hope that people start talking about it more, that they become more aware of the signs of addiction and learn how to help the addicts in their lives stay alive.  My prayers to Bobbi Kristina, Bobby Brown, who just lost his father, and all of her family and friends.

sigh  We love you Whitney and there will never be anything close to you ever again.  May your tortured soul finally find peaceful rest.

Sweet Angels and Scary Monsters

So most of you know by now that the sons of Susan Powell, who went missing from her home in 2009, were brutally murdered by their father.  Charlie and Braden were being dropped off by a social worker for a supervised visit with their father, one of several since November, when the visit turned into a nightmare.  In less than ten minutes, the house exploded into a fiery inferno at the hands of the monster that was their father.  He had locked the boys inside, luring them with the promise of a "big surprise".  He proceeded to take a hatchet to his own sons' heads and necks before rigging the place to blow up into a fireball and making sure his flesh and blood had no chance of escaping the flames and smoke.  No chance of telling the story of what their father had done to their mother the night of their "camping trip".  No chance of them putting him in prison for the murder of their mother with statements like "mommy was in the trunk".  All the while, their social worker tried frantically to get inside and then get help as the gasoline fumes, then flames overtook the air. 

Elizabeth Griffin Hall, the social worker assigned to their case, did everything she possibly could have done given the circumstances.  She tried to get the police involved, but the 911 operator seemed to be a bit high on himself and informed her that he didn't know when the police would be there because they had to respond to life threatening situations first.  This clown really needs to be dealt with.  I mean I have no idea why the smell of gas in the air and an unresponsive parent who won't let in a social worker for a supervised visit should be considered life threatening.  None at all.  He picked a bad time to be an ass on purpose.  Is it ever ok to speak to people that way when they're saying they have an emergency?  There's a way to say everything.

There are already a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks who think things could have been done differently and they'll swear that if they were in charge, they'd have made sure that this didn't happen.  There's no way to know that.  The only thing we know for sure is that their grandparents are now grieving for them the same as they've been grieving for their mother since she disappeared.  Susan Powell is still gone, the fact that she's probably dead hasn't changed, and what really happened to her probably died with her husband in that house.  Ms. Griffin Hall, though scarred, vows to continue on as a social worker forever changed by the fate of her two young charges.  A fate beyond her control, though it unfolded only steps away from her reach.  We can only take comfort in the hope that Susan and her sons are together again, wherever that may be.

God bless both families.  May those who are still on this earth that know what happened to Susan speak up and give the Cox family some sort of solace.  Allow them to bury their daughter with her children.  Charlie and Braden, finally you're safe.

And you wonder why...

With Valentine's Day fast approaching I've seen a lot of people talking about their relationships, or the absence of them.  Year round, I have a lot of people ask me why I'm single.  My usual response is "How much time do you have?" as the list goes on and on.  So I was on Twitter earlier and saw a tweet from Dondre Whitfield (one of my first TV crushes who is married to the gorgeous Salli Richardson-Whitfield, another of my favorites) that went like this "W/all these women out here w/o a man, the simple actin women who mistreat the GOOD 1's need to be on a reality show called #WutDaF&&kRUDoin".  He brought a lot to my mind and I just had to share.  My response was basically that these tramps make it pointless for us loyal women because brothers are just waiting for us to start acting crazy like them.  But you wonder why I'm single?  I'll tell you why.

You have these women out here who call themselves together and put up a great appearance that they are.  You meet them somewhere and they have those nails done, not a hair out of place - real or not - and the latest designer clothes and shoes on.  She then struts to her barely hanging on Chevy (credit too busted to afford anything else) and drives home where she lives in her parent's basement because she's so bad with money she can't keep her bills paid and she barely works.  She could care less whether or not her kid did their homework because she usually leaves that to mama so she can do her thing.  You get to come over as often as you want because she knows "mama got the kid".  And every time you speak she wants something from your wallet.  Til she finds someone with a bigger wallet.

Then you meet a chick who might be at home with mama because she got laid off and spent a few months between jobs and is just about to get her own place.  A brother will miss out because he'll just assume because she's down that she doesn't want to improve her situation and that she's going to be all in his pockets just like the last one.  He'll miss out on being inspired by and falling in love with her determination to dig herself out of a temporary hole and be better than she was before because of it.  He won't be around to see what a good example of perseverance she'd be to their children because he just can't go through that again.

Or the chick who spends all her time talking about her ex and how triflin' he dealt with her.  You know the relationship beginning to end, some conversations you know word for word by now.  You can't say hello to another woman without it being a woman he slept with before.  And what if he did?  Just because your ex was still doing his ex while he was with you doesn't mean the new man is.  He can't get a text message that he's not willing to answer in front of you either.  "Why you ignorin' that?  Oh, you don't wanna pick it up 'cause I'm right here?"  Maybe he's comfortable in that spot he found to put his arm behind you on the sofa and he's really into the chick flick YOU FORCED HIM TO WATCH WITH YOU and he doesn't want to move?  Simple broad...but that's the one he'll remember when he's dealing with the next woman.

So he won't even want to give the time of day to the woman who has dealt with men enough to know that sometimes they cheat (so do women) but that doesn't mean they all do.  Sometimes it just doesn't work out.  He won't see that she realizes that relationships end for lots of different reasons and that - gasp - IT ISN'T ALWAYS HIS FAULT.  There are women who understand that there are men that will not cheat and that treat their women like they deserve to be treated and that just because she may not have met that man yet, that doesn't mean he doesn't exist.  That means God hasn't put them in each other's paths yet.  Or He has and they haven't figured each other out yet.  But that may not be enough by the time he meets her.  He'll just be expecting the accusation.

Then there's the chick who can't be with just one man.  Tr*&k, you are no different to a man that you would call a "ho" or a "dog".  You want him, but you want everybody else too.  But you let him think you only want him because you don't want him stepping out and doing what you're doing behind his back.  With his friends, his relatives, people he works with, Ronnie, Bobby, Ricky, Mike, Ralph, Johnny (NE4LIFE...sorry).  Just punking him publicly, everyone knows about it...except him.

You keep letting him think it's all about him because you don't want anyone else to have him, heaven forbid someone else benefits from having a decent man in her life.  You know what, you're selfish.  It's just like I tell men, if you don't want to be with that person and that person only, let them go and don't let them believe it's exclusive if it isn't.  If you really cared about that man, you'd let that man be happy with someone who wants to be faithful to him.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.  You want to hold a good man because you know he's a good man, but you want your little piece on the side too, because you can't bear the thought of him being happy with the kind of woman he deserves.

So then he meets a good woman who still believes in monogamy (some of you need to look it up, like do that NOW) and just wants to be with one person until she dies because THAT'S WHAT GOD SAYS!!  She prays and believes that God will put her with a man who believes the same and she believes you are that man.  She could not be bothered to have any dealings with a man that she isn't fully committed to, she's not interested in having a bunch of flirtatious relationships with "male friends" just in case things don't work out with him.

But he'll be so damaged by the hurt from what the last woman did that he won't be able to bring himself to believe that there really is a woman who wants to be with just him, who couldn't care less what he has besides a job, a roof, and DRIVE because she knows that with her by his side she'll help push them BOTH to success.  Money will come and they'll both be able to appreciate what they BOTH worked hard for as a team.  He may think he doesn't have enough money, or sexual prowess, or he'll feel emasculated because he keeps ending up with scandalous women. 

Then you have my favorite:  the stupid women who put up with being treated like yesterday's leftover's.  You let these men sleep in your beds when they have wives at home.  You let them pass you STD's and believe them when they swear you must have had it before you got together five years ago.  You give them money whenever they tell you to, whether they work or not.  You let them hit you.  You put up with them not paying their child support or spending time with their children without going to court.  You repeatedly let them get away with cheating on you.  You allow them to mistreat your family and keep you away from the people that matter the most to you so that they can't talk some sense into you and you do it over and over again and these men get with a woman like me and think that's acceptable and can't deal with me when they realize I don't accept that.  Lots of us don't.

So to keep the next one from getting his money, he'll just take her time, but he won't take her anywhere.  He's done with dates.  Or to keep from being hurt by a cheater, he'll go cheat first so that it won't hurt as bad if he finds out you did too.  Or he'll avoid women who even mention God because all he can think about is how badly his chest heart when he got his heart broken by the last "church girl".  Or maybe he'll just give up altogether and a really wonderful human being will miss out on being a best friend, loving husband and father.  He may watch me walk by, but he won't talk to me or any of the rest of us looking for him and others like him.  By now he's convinced we're all the same.  He'll either give up, or turn into the guy you don't want.

We'll all stay single, and we'll all keep wondering why.

No more horsheshoe

Two things have become increasingly clear over the last few weeks.  The first:  Peyton Manning will play football again.  He's been cleared by two different doctors, one of whom performed his most recent neck surgery.  The second:  Peyton Manning will play in a different city, wearing a different uniform.  Sorry people, but there's no way Jim Irsay (the owner of the Colts) is going to pay Peyton the $28 million option in March and there's no way he doesn't draft Andrew Luck. Peyton is 36 years old, still a young man, no doubt, but no spring chicken when it comes to the NFL.  Irsay would have to have lost his mind not to draft Luck while he has the chance, he HAS to draft his future quarterback now and he will.  Not to mention the public sniping between Manning and Irsay.  Now that Peyton is healthy and able to play, I think it's only a matter of time before we hear the announcement that Peyton and Indy are parting ways.  The next question will be:  Where WILL he go?

Since we're talking about Peyton Manning, the answer's gonna be pretty much anywhere he wants to go.  What would make the most sense is for him to be with a team that he can win with because my bet is that if he's not in Indy (TWO QB's taking up all that salary cap?  Nah...) he'll go somewhere where he thinks he can win.  Just about any team in the NFL would improve their chances (ticket sales too) with Peyton with the exception of maybe a couple of teams.  The question then becomes where he thinks he has the best chance of winning; I HIGHLY doubt money will be an issue here, the guy's already worth over $100 million. 

I've heard that my team, The Redskins, might go after him.  As much as I would LOVE to see that happen, I'm not convinced that Dan Snyder has that level of intelligence.  Joe Gibbs?!  I thought the guy was dead...sheesh.  That would make too much sense.  But maybe he went and bought himself a clue and will do something that actually makes sense and court the hell out of the pretty girl at the dance without a date.

I've also heard that the 49ers and the Cardinals, even the Jets may be interested.  What's for sure, things are about to get realllly interesting.  Like I've heard it said...get your popcorn ready!

The Sad State of Black Entertainment

This year Octavia Spencer won a Golden Globe for her performance in this year's blockbuster hit "The Help".  Golden Globes are often seen as a precursor to the Oscars so they generate lots of Oscar buzz whether the performance did or not.  So, of course, there's been lots of Oscar talk about the talented Ms. Spencer and Viola Davis, a co-star of the film and fellow nominee; the kind of talk that takes me back a few years to when Denzel and Halle won for Best Actor and Actress.  They made history and their wins were celebrated by black and white alike, but there was a quiet, vocal group that protested.  Why, you wonder?  I'll give you my take on it.

Denzel was quite memorably passed up for the Oscar he DESERVED for "X".  While it wasn't the only role he gave an Oscar worthy performance in, if he deserved an Oscar for anything, that would have been it.  Yet when he does win, it's for playing the filthiest and dirtiest of cops who cheats on his wife, has a secret family, and runs drugs on the job.

Halle played the hell out of several roles before finally being nominated for what, to me, was not her best performance.  Not to mention the fact that for about five minutes it turned into a softcore porn film (the hell was that about?).  The movie made no sense and she played a role that she'd played before.  Well, no doubt, but she'd already done it.  I guess the added element of sex on screen was all Hollywood needed.  

It seems as if art is imitating life here.  Watch the news.  You'll see plenty of reports about all the crimes that "we" commit when the numbers prove that other groups are committing more crime than us, there are just more of us in jail.  You would, however, be hard pressed to get the mainstream media to talk about the young black mother of six who went missing in Detroit months ago.  We did, however, hear for weeks about a young white woman who lost an ear and a hand to a helicopter.  Now let me be clear, I am terribly sorry this young woman walked into the propeller of a helicopter BUT WE KNOW WHERE SHE IS!!!  No one has seen Kalisha Madden since November 28, 2011.  Have you heard anything about it?  No.  Probably because she happened to be a stripper with six children.  Yet we heard ad nauseum about Robyn Gardner who went missing after she went off to Aruba with a man she met on a swingers website who was someone other than the boyfriend she left at home without much mention, if any, of how she met him.  You'll hear all day about what crime we committed or what we're complaining about this time.  Yet you don't hear of our history and our accomplishments. 

For those of you not familiar with the movie "The Help", it's about black maids in 60's era Jackson, MS who work for a group of rich, white Junior League Old Mississippi women.  Some of these maids had been willed down from prior generations like furniture, most of them were forced to use separate restrooms from the white families, heaven forbid they should pass any of their strange nigra diseases to them since their diseases are different and all.  The unmarried, "free spirit" of the bunch decides to save the day and make all their lives better by convincing them to talk about what it was like working for these white families, anonymously, of course, and write a book about it that she hoped would draw attention to their plight and somehow save their day. 

Powerful performances were turned in by the ENTIRE cast, but we all know that anonymous or not, what they did would have gotten those women killed before they even made it to the second meeting.  Now if the point of the movie was to tell a fairly tale, then it was a great story.  But if the intent was to allude to any truth about life in that era, that truth stops at the fact that these women were still slaves to the southern whites they worked for - they just had bills now. 

Spencer and Davis should be recognized for their performances, no doubt, and they likely will at the big dance.  What is also likely to happen, I fear, is that these women and other black actresses may indeed be offered more roles - but as maids.  Or nannies.  Or old wise women who exist for the purpose of someone for the white actor/actress to play off of.  Anything other than what we are or what we strive to be.

We hardly ever play police or authoritative figures unless it's on TV.  It seems we're almost too desperate to see ourselves on TV.   We'll get excited about anything without thinking thoroughly about what we're perpetuating when we tell everybody to spend their money or time to go see something because the cast has more than one black actor.  You may think I'm being too deep with it.  I say you ought to sit back and think about it for a minute.   Then take a deep breath.  You're probably about to hate me.  

Tyler Perry is a talented guy, let's establish that.  BUT, his shows and movies feature a lot of HORRIBLE acting, tired storylines, and the same characters over and over again.  Somebody's always getting married (and getting in a fight), going to a funeral (and getting in a fight), having a family dinner on Sunday (and getting in a fight), getting in a fight and going to jail, etc.  It almost looks as if we CAN'T get creative and come up with other ideas when I KNOW that's not the case.  

Everybody is not cussing someone out at the drop of a hat and we need to stop acting like that's cute because it isn't.  Every brother is not beating and tearing down his woman, and every brother isn't leaving his family to start another one with someone else.  Everybody can't be smoking weed all day, getting by without working, or raising their grandchildren because no one knows where the crackhead mother is.  Come on, man.  (I do realize that this means Tyler Perry will not be giving me my big break as a writer/actress, but I've lived with it so far...)

We've never had a mainstream "black movie" featuring a spy, or a police department or a bunch of Wall Street investors or anything else like that.  You know what our movies are about?  Our men tricking off multiple women, fatherless families, us dealing drugs, robbing banks, etc.  We just throw something on paper, find black people willing to act out this crap for a check and then put it straight on DVD so our dumb a$$e$ can go rent it at Blockbuster.  We're not going to get better entertainment until we insist on better and stop supporting anything less.  It's gotta start somewhere.  

Now I'm not bashing Tyler Perry, there are enough people that have that covered.  I do want to ask him if he's really interested in improving black entertainment.  It would seem to me that if he truly is, he'd consider hiring better actors.  Better still, before he built a studio, an in house acting school would have been a better investment.  The presence of the great Cicely Tyson can only cover so many sins.  If his movies and TV shows featured better acting performances and writing, then we might see a shift in the tides.  It is his gift to use as he chooses, and I'm not here to tell him how to use it.  I'm sure he knows that as long as the name "Madea" is in the title, he can thrown on a wig and a dress, surround himself with absolute GARBAGE, put it out and we'll still go see it because it's a "black movie"and we'll SWEAR it was better than anything we've seen in a long time and DARE anyone to say otherwise.  Yeah.  Getting a little uncomfortable?  Too bad, I'm still not done.

Look at it this way.  Say, for example, you hero-worship your brother, then he  ends up being this serial killer.  Yeah you still love your brother, but you know what he did was wrong.  Are you going to say it's ok that he chopped up ten people because he's your brother?  If you would, please never read this blog again and forget forever what my face looks like.  For the normal ones who would say "I'd still love my brother but I can't condone or support what he did."  I ask you this:  Why would you keep supporting movies and TV that kill our image and paint us to be something less than what we really are?  We come from royalty, warriors, and people with a strong work ethic...why do we continue to accept lesser portrayals of ourselves?  No I'm not comparing anyone to a serial killer.  Focus.

We get all excited about a new TP show featuring...wait for it...characters from his movies, of course, and we LOSE OUR MINDS over crap TV like "The Game".  But I wonder how many of us got that excited and our of our minds to go see "Red Tails", a movie Hollywood DIDN'T want so bad because of its all black cast that George Lucas had to fund it himself?!  This is a movie about AMERICAN history that could not have been made without the presence of the Tuskeegee Airmen.  Black fighter pilots?  Trailblazers?  Heroes?  Count me IN!  This I can give up my money and time for.  Not garbage like "Meet The Browns" which would be DEAD without the existence of one character.  When I see "Madea Gets A Job" or "Madea Gets A Degree" or "Madea Takes A Break (To Take An Acting Class)", then maybe things will be looking up.  Just sayin'...