Summuna Fitch

Obama may have lost the Pennsylvania primary but he apparently made up for his lackluster performance among the over 60 crowd with big pull in the mall demographic.

Can someone please tell the Obama campaign to do a better job of selecting the bodies to populate his backdrop during his concession speeches? Nothing inspires less confidence than a campaign leadership obtuse enough to put Barrack Obama in front of 3 white dudes wearing tee shirts from Abercrombie & Fitch, a clothing retailer once involved in a class action law suit for discriminating against Asian and African American job applicants.

Brobama: Writing Durrrrty

Yeah, I know, we all got massive broners watching Obama's Iowa Victory Speech on January 3rd but there was more than his affected proselytizing prose that rubbed my rod the wrong way.

First, is a booming baritone vibrato allowed in any public speaking venue outside of a pulpit or a lectern on the Mall?

Second, is a 26-year-old white kid named Jon Favreau really responsible for those bombastic phrases that draw such easy parallels to a white guy doing an impression of a black guy doing an impression of a black guy? Apparently, yes.

As evinced by this January 20th New York Times article everyone and their dad is in love with Obama's broratory skills. What would Obama say, they ask. My answer: Whatever Nixon already has.

Let's take a comparative look at Obama's Iowa Victory Speech from 2008 and Richard Nixon's second Republican nomination acceptance speech in 1972 and see if any similarities immediately jump out.

Nixon: "Speaking in a very personal sense, I express my deep gratitude to this convention for the tribute you have paid to the best campaigner in the Nixon family-my wife Pat. In honoring her, you have honored millions of women in America who have contributed in the past and will contribute in the future so very much to better government in this country."

Obama: "And while I'm at it on thank yous, I think it makes sense for me to thank the love of my life, the rock of the Obama family, the closer on the campaign trail.Give it up for Michelle Obama."

Nixon: "I want to say that you have inspired us with your enthusiasm, with your intelligence, with your dedication at this convention. You have made us realize that this is a year when we can prove the experts' predictions wrong..."

Obama: "You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high...But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do."

Nixon: "This Nation proudly calls itself the United States of America. Let us reject any philosophy that would make us the divided people of America.In that spirit, I address you tonight, my fellow Americans, not as a partisan of party, which would divide us, but as a partisan of principles, which can unite us...And I ask you, my fellow Americans, tonight to join us not in a coalition held together only by a desire to gain power. I ask you to join us as members of a new American majority bound together by our common ideals."

Obama: "In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and in big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say that we are one nation. We are one people...You said the time has come...To end the political strategy that's been all about division, and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states."

Nixon: "The choice in this election is not between radical change and no change. The choice in this election is between change that works and change that won't work."

Obama: "We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America."

Nixon: "I ask you, my fellow Americans, to join our new majority not just in the cause of winning an election, but in achieving a hope that mankind has had since the beginning of civilization. Let us build a peace that our children and all the children of the world can enjoy for generations to come."

Obama: "Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be."

Bill Pullman: "We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests...We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"

So You Think You Can Dance Predictions: No Homo Edition

After last night's results show for So You Think You Can Dance, I'm well on my way to predicting yet again who the final winners of this year will be. In case you haven't been following along with my interest in the show let me briefly update you. I want to heart hug Sabra beneath a suede duvet filled with tenor saxophones playing sweet arpeggios in a mixolydian scale.

So final prediction: For the first time in the show's history a woman will win, and a black woman at that.

First place - Sabra

Second place - Neil

Evidence for my cause:

1. 
   
   Sabra and Dominic in Generaux's STICKWITU Rumba


2. 
   
   Sabra and Dominic in Shane Spark's lyrical hip hop routine


3. 
   
   Sabra and Neil in Mandy Moore's '80s homage

Avid Online Entourage Fans Hate Minorities? Or Avid Online Fans of Racism Love Entourage?

Now, I know Fan Message Boards aren't the first place one should look for cool, rational, objective and insightful comments about a particular television show, but some times they're just too crazy to ignore.

Take for example a recent debate on the HBO.com message boards for August 12th's episode of Entourage "The Young and the Stoned." A poster going by the name of HBBro, after speaking somewhat intelligently about the show, decided to play the race card and said:

However, the presence of a black director really underscored the show's dearth of diversity. When's the last time a black actor's had a line in the show since Turtle's short-lived courtship of the sneaker chick from You Got Served?

At this point, Entourage loyalists joined the fray and responded:

Oh, please. Shut the hell up and stop playing the fucking race card. It's a fucking TV show, if you don't like it because "black guys aren't featured" then don't watch, simple as that.

And:

...here's a show for HBBRO, The Wire plenty of "african-americans" in that show leave ENTOURAGE as is!

And:

There wasn't enough white people on Cosby Show either!!!!!!!!

And:

Wait!! Doesnt Turtle count as a black person??? He acts and dresses more black than most African Americans do.

And:

With Turtles stupid hats and the lame Hipity Hopity music they play on this show it could easily run on BET.

In defense of the show's message boards, one fan came to HBBro's aid. A poster conspicuously using the pseudonym "DouglasEllin" said:

I'm simply amazed that this alleged "message board" is limited to the intelligence of a selected few, i.e., anyone with opposing minds need not apply. If one wants to spark a discussion of race (while admittedly a heavy one concerning such a fluffy show), why must that poster be chased out to the parking lot, so to speak? This kind of oh-shut-the-fuck-up! attitude merely turns prospective posters away, and invariably perpetuates a boys-club/locker-room mentality that, at the end of the day, includes the same 10 dudes high-fiving each other and whipping each others' buttocks with wet towels in their confined bubble while the great big world outside rolls onward.

Granted this high-minded defense of free speech on the HBO message boards loses some of its luster when you seriously take the time to consider that the poster actually uses the name of Entourage creator Doug Ellin to underscore his noble points. Which means, he's probably crazy and sleeps on a mattress fashioned from rejected Spec Scripts.

In any case, the question still remains: Do avid online fans of Entourage really hate minorities? Naw, I'm sure Avid fans of racism just really love their Entourage.

Entourage: The Young, White and Stoned

August 12th's episode of Entourage seems to represent an upswing in the creative energies and motivations at HBO, Leverage and Closest to the Hole, the production teams behind the series. After a dismal run of episodes revolving around cheap, sophomoric gags like "rim jobs," "trannies" and "furries," it seems Doug Elin, et al. are finally back on track and serving up legitimate plot points that follow the bread crumbs out of the narrative quagmire of Medallin.

An entire half season arc dedicated to Perry Reeves' character "Walsh" and the team's production nightmares revolving around the Escobar bio-pic taxed the commitment of even the most loyal fans of the show, who can now finally be satisfied that the show is back on track and near the pitch-perfect levels of seasons 1 and 2.

Together with last weeks' episode, last night's installment "The Young and the Stoned" pushed us into new territory with the launch of Eric's new business and the prospect of another client. The writing was fresh, the plot lines were humorous and the tone was just what you needed to send your arms into the air and scream in the face of a dwindling summer, "VICTORY."

First time Entourage contributor Dusty Kay penned the script and along with TV director Ken Whittingham could claim primary responsibility for the show's return to excellence. Kay's been out of the game since his last contribution to television in 2002 for The Twilight Zone series. Clocking in at nearly 50 years old, Kay doesn't seem like the kind of person whose mind would provide the fertile soil for a plot line centered on "extinct weed." In the end though, he pulled off the pacing and came away with one of the finer episodes of the season.

Even more intriguing than the "cincogenarian" who grimaced through arthritis to pen the script is the presence of an African-American director for a show that, to my knowledge, hasn't had a black guy open his mouth on screen for a little bit now. Ken Whittingham last directed the marginally funny episode "Sorry, Harvey" which contained the memorable "trannicles" at the end. This time around the former director of episodes for more diverse shows like "One on One" and "Everybody Hates Chris" brought back the youthful exuberance that's made Entourage such a summer time hit.

Still, it's surprising to see a show whose title has primarily been associated with hip-hop stars storming the red carpet and brawls opening up in crowded Las Vegas lobbies center around only white characters whose closest encounter with an entourage most closely reminiscent to the nineties hip-hop prototypes ended with Wee-bey from "The Wire" dangling Drama off a hotel balcony in season 3.

Still, as white-bred as Entourage remains, it seems to be back on track. Hopefully the last 3 episodes will bring us out of summer on an exuberant wave that has us looking back on Season 4 with a fond and satisfied sigh of "Victory."

Studio 60 Continues Not Sucking Streak

Until I learn the purpose of the TV blog "recaplet" and how to successfully write a good one this will be how I shall address the airings of most recent episodes.

Show: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Air Date: Monday, January 22, 2007
Title: Monday
Writer: Aaron Sorkin *

Commentary: Without completely losing the Religious Right critique he's been using as the moral center of the show, a schtick a lot of viewers have grown tired of, Sorkin kicked off the second half of the show's first season with a strong story incorporating the finer aspects of his past work: intriguing overarching plot points, richly written women characters and the painful tenderness of unrequited love.

One interesting thing to take away from Monday's episode is Sorkin's maturing exploration of race. Predominantly a non-issue in Sports Night, race became an awkward scepter of self-righteousness which Sorkin used to pat his own back in certain episodes of the West Wing. In Monday's Studio 60, however, the developing story line of Simon Stiles, his race and his relationship with a young, black writer introduces a topic often noticed but rarely discussed - the black identity within the history of American comedy.

Perhaps it was of no oversight of his own that Sorkin wrote the scene between Simon Stiles and the new, black writer for an episode to air 30 years after the premier of that other great institution of American television, Roots.

Maybe the improbable is possible; Sorkin can be topical without being pedantic; maybe someday I'll learn to write a recaplet.

*Sorkin only gets a "created by" credit not a "teleplay by."