seen?

folks of my generation routinely say that the cartoons of our youth were far better than the driveling nonsense on tv now. clearly, i agree. but we don't routinely say why. well, here's my take.

i miss the cartoons that cracked wise. the ren and stimpy, the daria, the pinky & the brain cartoons where the characters were darkly, hopelessly, funnily (so not a word) witty that they came back with a smart aleck comment for everything. the speak your mind cartoons, the cartoons that served a bit of edge with their hijinks.

remember when daria said, "i don't have low self-esteem. i have low esteem for everyone else?" remember that episode of ren and stimpy when they were caught on that planet in outerspace, and they imploded. remember the poignancy of the moment when they realized what was going to happen, and they said goodbye to each other? and the relentlessness of pinky and the brain? how they persisted and perservered, to the point where they got their own show?

yeah...darkwing duck, anyone? animaniacs - the goodfeathers who were determined to perch on scorcesse's head? hello nurse? rocko's modern life? rocko had a best friend named heiffer! i love it!

these are the cartoons wikipedia articles like to note for their "subversive humor." yeah. the cartoons that don't take their cartoonness (and the limits their cartoonness should impose) too seriously. yeah, some animator had drawn them, but they were still pretty darn clever and didn't feel like they owed the animators anything. the ones that have a comment on the state of the whole pop culture world, and don't feel inhibited by the fact that they are just drawings.

could shrek have been, without these cartoons first? i think without some of these cartoons, we would not feel comfortable with our cartoons talking back to us. or talking about us.

cartoons of today have a kitschy cuteness factor. i suppose. i suppose this is why adults run around buying spongebob doodads. i have never found spongebob to be cute. mostly, i found him to be dumb - a character without much brainpower. i also suppose the kitsch-cute factor skipped over a generation or two cartoons, cuz folks also collect felix the cat and mickey mouse. well, i'll take exposure heiffer over kitsch any day.

obviously, this leaves out cartoons like family guy today. but intentionally so, because family guy is clearly directed towards and adult audience. then again, if we wanna look at it a little more deeply, family guy got it's first run on television at this time...along with dr. katz...but that's beginning to sound like another post.

so maybe that's a lot of analysis. for cartoons. but that is what i miss. i don't even begin to understand things like cat dog or cow and chicken. i miss the cartoons with bravado, with daring. if anyone knows of any on tv now (and not the simpsons, the simpsons fall into another category entirely) let me know.

Labels: other stuff, tv

Posted by call me aja at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments

...think you are great. honest. i really love top model. i've watched since day 1, and eva was my favorite, and i loved naima, and danielle, and i thought yoanna was absolutely beautiful. and when i was little, and i was skinny and tall for my age, and i promised to be super tall adult, people encouraged me to be you when i grew up.

i am so glad you are doing what you want to do with your life. i loved you in higher learning. you were a unique and talented model. retiring from one wildly successful career at a vastly young age to pursue another. ms. banks, i'm proud of you. and you said you wanted to get a talk show, and you went out and got one. hats off to you.

but the other morning, i saw you on good morning america, one of my favorite shows, talking about an episode of said talk show where you would be investigating modeling scams, schemes that promise to make models of impressionable young women, but that really only exploit them. you have said that exposing these schemes was your personal crusade, and i think you could really be the one to do just that. if anybody knows about making it in the modeling world, surely, that would be you.

but then i learned more about the epsiode and it's set up for accomplishing your purpose. and it profoundly saddened me. apparently, you set up your own fake scheme, hired a fake photographer and makeup artist, solicited hopeful models, and brought them down to a fake photo shoot to see what would transpire.

apparently, some of these young women went so far as to get naked for this phony photo session. and then you came in and told them it was fake and asked them why they did it.

here's my take: this "investigative action" did not expose modeling scams. it was a modeling scam. i can't say you didn't set up the hopefuls for a real shot at a real agency, because i didn't get to see the entire episode. i was at work, and i have no video recording device, so i am relying on what i heard you say on gma and on what i have read on your website. i can only hope you did something to make up for their lost time. and i as think your heart is in the right place, and as i think you are sincere in your efforts, i am pretty sure you did something for them. i can't imagine otherwise.

but...by putting on this experiment in this manner, you became that same scam you are crusading against. then you used that footage, footage of these young women being duped, possibly nakedly, for your television show. i can't help but think that that was not a good setup. nor did it expose scams, it did not expose the scam artists, it did not expose their lechery, it exposed the vulnerability and gullibility of the girls you want to protect.

and i also can't help but think about the first episode of this season of top model, wherein you asked the semifinalist to stand for a nude, outdoor photo shoot before the final competition even began. is that much different from asking for them to get naked for an open call? i know that top model is an actual and legitimate competition, but you congratulated the girls on the talk show who refused to take off their clothes just because a photographer asked them to. but girls have been eliminated from the competition on top model for just the same reason. is it a double standard?

it's a harsh, cruel world out there, and young women need to be prepared. might i suggest that a better investigative model might have been to send a trained, professional model, or actor, into an actual modeling scam setup and taped that? then no one innocent (and perhaps naive) aspiring model has to be embarassed on television, and you don't have to do anything to compensate for their hurt.

just a thought. i'm not an investigative reporter either, but i thought i'd make the suggestion.

Labels: other stuff, tv

Posted by call me aja at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments

obviousy, i love books. this is for the aristocracy of all books. if amiri baraka can write in memory of radio, i can write in memory of the encyclopedia.

true story time: as a kid, we had 3 sets of encyclopedia. i used to read through them, obviously not cover to cover, but just sit there and read articles. i loved those books: hard, textured leather covers, small text on perfect sheets of paper, distinctive coloring bands, their absolute order, their codified history.

encyclopedia's helped me develop my first sense of history. chocolate, buffalo, the west indies, christmas: i read all kinds of articles about things that interested me, and the fact that there was a distinguish book that bound all this info together made it seem seamless, and important. there was a wonderful finality about the encyclopedia.

and then: a new year brought a new additions to the encyclopedia. what a wonderful time to put things in perspective, to decide what from the previous year or years would be important to us moving forward into the next year, and whatever that might bring to us. the encyclopedia - it was fact incarnate.

and then: encarta. encarta killed the encyclopedia. microsoft encarta, that cd rom program that contained all of the information some shelves full of lovely encyclopedia books contained. that cd rom that took up so little space, and could easily be carried with you, and so brilliantly pointed up all of the flaws of the encyclopedia sets. those sets of encyclopedias to which i had become so attached.

these are some of the encyclopedia's flaws: there is nothing liberté égalité fraternité about the set of bound encyclopedias. either you have the money to buy a set, and keep buying sets if you value staying informed, or you do not. and of course, the old adage that history is written by the victors is perhaps never so true anywhere as in the encyclopedia - it being so intimidating, so expensive, its utter sense of finality, leaves no room for the non-victors to have a say. there was little rival to the encyclopedia. to be honest, i never really thought of the encyclopedia as such as status symbol. it really was. i loved the encyclopedia for its big words, obscure topics, and neat packets of information. because it made me feel like there was a lot to learn, not that because it made me feel important. there was a lot to learn, but the fact remained that there were only so many volumes to a set. you could, actually, read it all. and come to a point where you had mastered one year of history.

encarta: after awhile, you could even get encarta online, and that had oodles of brand spanking new information. i'll go out on a limb and say that with encarta, history was being written literally as it was being written. so there was no selectivity, no time for review, no time for perspective on what was actually important and what turned out to be not so important. in the long run. there was no more long run. there was only a short sprint to be the first to get the latest info into the hand of the masses.

more info is available to more people. wikipedia anyone? another true story: i often find myself reading wikipedia in the same way i used to read the encyclopedia as a kid. when i hear of a news event, i often look up the related topics on wikipedia, and all the details are already there. no waiting. no new editions. no shelf space, not even a cd rom this time around. so democratic, few filters...just a glut of information, so much informatin, still taking me to the place where i want to know more and more and more...but sometimes it's overwhelming. with the encyclopedia, i kinda felt like i could actually conquer it. all of it. with all wikipedia, i know i can't. i read it though. i turn to it daily.

but with wikipedia, i don't get to feel the contrast between textured leather covers and smooth pages between my busy, itchy, knowledge hungry fingers.

thanks to my good friend brandi for making me think deeply about the demise of the encyclopedia.

Labels: aja, never forgetting, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments

<--i just finished reading this book, langston hughes's first novel, originally published in 1930. the novel was ok, more successful as a portrait and a study of black america in the early 1910s than as a story, but the title is clearly the most apt observation. anything can be endured, as long as you've got a bit of laughter.

which is why i spent so much of last night laughing. after a rather long work week, i went out with some friends to chef yu, a restaurant in midtown west that has $3 mixed drinks during happy hour. we asked for a table for 3 (there were two of us there at the moment, but one was coming to meet us) and we were told that there were no tables available, and we'd have to wait. we went to the bar to get a drink while we waited...and then a party of 4 entered the restaurant was seated right away. i looked at my friend, she looked at me, and we decided it had to be the hair, me with my afro and she with her hair hidden under a black headwrap. we obviously looked too intimidating to be seated right away. well, maybe not. but i couldn't think of any other reason why we weren't seated immediately. (and this was not a reservations necessary type of place.)

eventually, we got a table, a waitress came and took our order...and never came back. so we flagged down a random waiter and made an order, and he said something we couldn't understand and disappeared. he eventually brought us our order. then i noticed that my menu had a random drink which careful inspection and interviews of patrons seated nearby revealed did not exist on any other menu: the woo woo. where my menu said woo woo, their menus said "terquila sunrise." yes, that's right, teRquila sunrise. ok. we asked a random waiter what a woo woo was, and he said he didn't know. hmmm.....if we had laughed at not getting service (and we did), then this was a knee slapper.

and about an half hour later, the original waitress came back, not to check and see how we were doing, but to ask if she could take the empty chair, since they were running low on chairs. ok, fine. wierd, but fine. then a waiter came by and asked if we were done with our drinks, since they were running low on glasses. umm...yeah, we're done with our drinks. if we had laughed about not getting service, and about our speculations about what a woo woo could possibly be, then this was just absolute hilarity. ridiculous. i suggested that the staff take a course on how to run a restaurant. they were so amusingly clueless.

i am happy to report that my shrimp dumplings had actual shrimp in them. that's a plus.

later, on the train ride home, i recounted the restaurant mishaps to a couple of random folks. one young man decried the rudeness of the waitstaff. i shrugged; can't get mad about everything, right? how small a thing, this was, at least at that moment. one of those random folks was a very nice, very tall young gentleman (who offered me his seat) who just so happened to be the tallest person i have ever seen in my life. turns out, he is 7'1. i have a very tall family (even if i'm only moderately tall) but this dude takes the very tall cake. and not long after he got off the train, a much shorter young man with a surfboard got on the train. it's rainy, it's cold, it's brooklyn, and he's getting on the train with a surfboard. seems a bit...unusual. so i asked him where he goes to surf, and in this weather, and he said, rockaway, this is the best time of year, the waves are great! the beach will be crowded with surfers! there are more surfers in the city than i would think! he needs to make it out there by 5am in order to get the good waves! (ok, he didn't actually talk with all those exclamation points, but he was rather enthusiastic.) and this other woman asked him where his wetsuit was, and he said he'd left it at his friends house, he lives not far from rockaway beach. and i asked him what a surfboard is made of, and he said, the core is foam and its got something or other wrapped around it (sorry, i forgot what).

apparently, some of the best waves to be had are at the very tip of long island at this time of year. not very many good waves to be had close to the city, the flow of the rivers into the ocean really messes up the waves, but the further away from the city you get...

well, thanks everyone who shared a laugh with me.

Labels: other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments

and i don't have goltv. and apparently, the rebroadcast will be on monday...when i'll be at the labor day parade. honestly, it shouldn't be this difficult to watch a soccer match, especially one that everyone in the world is trying to watch anyway...

Labels: other stuff, tv

Posted by call me aja at 9:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

since you know i am fascinated by that one thing that is gentrification and that other thing that is overheardinnewyork.com, i think it's just lovely the two interests have collided.

The Delis Are Going to Have to Start Selling Matzoh-Ball Soup

Black guy #1, noticing white guy walking down the street: Aw, man!
Black guy #2: There goes the neighborhood.
White guy: This is the cheapest rent in the city. You better believe my people are going to start moving here.

--Franklin Ave, Brooklyn

via Overheard in New York, Aug 29, 2006

Labels: brooklyn, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

so apparently, every year beloit college publishes a mindset list for its incoming freshman class. basically, its a list of cultural facts, assumptions, and givens that have shaped the world perceptions of those particular young folk. they've just published the class of 2010's mindset list, but since i am proudly a member of the class of 2005, i'm gonna do a little throwback and put our mindset list here. (i will say that one of the facts on the class of 2010's list says "milli vanilli has never had anything to say" and i thought that was just priceless. for those of you who'd like to see it: http://www.beloit.edu/%7Epubaff/mindset/2010.htm )

BELOIT COLLEGE'S
CLASS OF 2005 MINDSET LIST®

1.	Most students starting college this fall were born in 1983.
2.	Ricky Nelson, Marvin Gaye and Laura Ashley have always been dead.
3.	The New Kids on the Block are over the hill.
4.	They want to be PHAT but not fat.
5.	IBM Selectrics are antiques.
6.	Thongs no longer come in pairs and slide between the toes.
7.	God has never been a "he" in most churches.
8.	Hard copy has nothing to do with a TV show; a browser is not someone relaxing in a bookstore; a virus does not make humans sick; and a mouse is not a rodent (and there is no proper plural for it).
9.	Moscow has always been opposed to "star wars."
10.	Recording TV programs on VCRs became legal the year they were born.
11.	The British Royal family has always behaved badly.
12.	There has always been Diet Coke.
13.	Artificial hearts have always been ticking.
14.	The Social Security system has always been on the brink.
15.	There have always been warnings about second-hand smoke.
16.	They have never experienced a real recession.
17.	A hacker is not just a kid who won't stop fooling around.
18.	Grenada has always been safe for democracy.
19.	They were born the same year as the PC and the Mac.
20.	The U.S. Senate has always had a daycare program.
21.	One earring on a man indicates that he is probably pretty conservative.
22.	CDs have always been labeled for explicit content.
23.	Lethal Weapon in one form or another has always been "at the movies."
24.	Boeing has not built the 727 since they were born.
25.	Sarajevo was a war zone, not an Olympic host.
26.	They don't remember Janet Jackson when she was cute and chubby.
27.	Drug testing of athletes has always been routine.
28.	There has always been a hole in the ozone layer.
29.	They have always had access to email.
30.	The Colts have always been in Indianapolis.
31.	The precise location of the Titanic has always been known.
32.	When they were born, Madonna was still a radiant woman holding a beatific child.
33.	Jimmy Hoffa has always been officially dead.
34.	Tylenol has always been impossible for children or adults to open.
35.	Volkswagen beetles have always had engines in the front.
36.	They do not know what the Selective Service is, but men routinely register for it on their financial aid forms.
37.	Ron Howard and Rob Reiner have always been balding older film directors.
38.	Cal Ripken has always been playing baseball.
39.	They have probably never used carbon paper and do not know what cc and bcc mean.
40.	Lasers have always been marketed as toys.
41.	Major newspapers have always been printed in color.
42.	Beta is a preview version of software, not a VCR format.
43.	They have never known exactly what to call the rock star formerly and presently known as Prince.
44.	They are the first generation to prefer tanning indoors.
45.	Survivor is a TV show not a rock group.
46.	They have heard "just say no" since they were toddlers.
47.	Most of them know someone who was born with the help of a test tube.
48.	It has paid to "Discover" since they were four.
49.	Oprah has always been a national institution.
50.	With a life expectancy of 77 years, they can anticipate living until about 2060.

Labels: aja, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments

nothing much to say right now except i'm feelin pretty good about life.

Labels: aja, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

i am finding it difficult to take the word humankind seriously.

i am not a queen of pc. i really, honestly, just don't care to be pc. but humankind is supposed to be one of those pc words right? and really, i think it's beautiful because it implies humanity, which is supposed to be some sort of endearing and ephemeral and compelling quality that connects all folks, man and woman and child and of all races but really....

i read a lot. and when i read, i find that mankind has come up with all kinds of ways in which to hurt each other, to hurt mankindself. i'm saying mankind because man has demonstrated no humanity and woman has not deserved to be separated from the lot (sorry).

there's a war on between ethiopia and somalia. and very few people know about it cuz, well...maybe it's not sexy enough. won't sell enough papers. won't endanger the oil supplies, won't stop students from attending universities, won't stop diplomats from rhapsodizing on unity and lovely cultures. there's also, of course, a war on between lebanon and israel, though i honestly can't fathom why that one is sexy enough to sell newspapers when, in life, it's blood and gore. adn then...the usa is at war with everyone else it can think of save britain and canada. and why?

we have no sense of humanity, perhaps. we have no sense that other folks from other countries are also humans.

although, if one want's to get right down to it, mankind is a pretty awfully inept word as well, because man has lately been nothing kind...unless i'm missing something. and let's not get stated on civilization....

Labels: aja, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

i worked very late last night (got home at around midnight...my cat was quite irritated at the lateness of her dinner).

so i was in the car, coming home from work, and i was talking to the driver, a very nice man from tibet. i'd asked him where he was from, and he said guess, so i guessed almost every country in asia until he finally, laughingly said he was from tibet. he said that he was a mountain man, and you could tell a tibetan by his ponytail. he did, in fact, have a very nice, longish ponytail. he'd been in new york nine years, and he drove very much like an nyc car driver. so i learned a few facts - tibet is roughly 12,000 feet above sea level. and that brad pitt movie seven years in tibet was actually filmed in argentina.

so, i know there isn't really much to this story, but then i thought, you never really know what all the person next to you has seen in the world, what he or she really knows about the world. and i'd never met anyone from tibet before, and i may never ever go to tibet, but even the things that seem most insignificant to my daily life...

(read: a continuing sovereignty conflict in a small mountain country may or may not have been the/a reason why a man left his home country and moved to another, became a driver, and picked me up and brought me home on a late night at work - yes, that conflict may or may not have put that man in charge of my safe conveyance home, that is, in charge of my life and limb)

...are really not all that insignificant. and what's funny is that sometimes if the news doesn't lead with a story that's happening in brooklyn, i don't even care to watch it.

Labels: it takes a village, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

and i have no real cooling device. it is hot in nyc. so hot that my poor computer, which already has a tendency to overheat, just shuts itself down all the time cuz it's hot, too.

anyway, got 3 new movies from netflix:

monsoon wedding
bee season
the squid and the whale

that's it for now. the computer generates too much heat, so i'm gonna shut it down soon.

Labels: other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments

today, i have discovered that someone has put up a kiddie pool in the yard behind my building. in fact, the pool is right under my bedroom window. i feel like somebody may have been reading my throwback post.

or maybe somebody just had a bunch of kids who were hot and driving them crazy in the house.

Labels: brooklyn, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments

for the all the current/former ghetto kids out there: remember on hot summer days asking your parent/guardian/supervision-provider for permission to go down the street and get wet in so-and-so's front yard? or backyard, for that matter? and getting wet sometimes meant running through the yard sprinkler, or sometimes it meant so-and-so's parent/guardian/supervision- provider just sprayed you all with the water hose while you just ran around the yard in a bathing suit? remember how this is what cooled you off on summer days cuz you were not allowed to go to the swimming/wading pool in martin luther king park because it was, as your parent/guardian/supervision-provider said it was too dirty?
************************

today, on the bus coming home, i saw a flyer advertising first friday at ovations, playing only the best hip hop, reggae, r&b, etc...first friday at ovations, friday, july 5th, 2002.

Labels: aja, brooklyn, other stuff

Posted by call me aja at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

i am in love with words. words themselves, their sounds, and their meanings.

but this is a post about a couple of words i hate.

ethnic-along came polly was on tv recently, and i watched it, and although it had its funny moments, i found it excruciating every time ben stiller's character said that polly had him eating ethnic food. ethnic food??? as in food that comes from an ethnicity? i find i hate the word ethnic for implying that there is such a thing as non-ethnic, and i hate this society for encouraging the idea that ethnic applies to non-white, or to some extent non-middle american. ethnic is two-syllable symbol of rather unfortunate exoticism, which leads me to...

exotic-mostly i hate this word when people use it to apply to themselves. how is it that you are exotic? is your skin green? do you come from another planet? because otherwise, as a human being, you are one of a family of billions, from a species that is nearly as old as time itself
(and certainly as old as our concept of time)--in other words, you are nothing new (though that is definitely not to say nothing special)

illegitmate-see previous post

african american-i suppose there is nothing inherently wrong in the term african american, other than it contains way too many syllables and that it its use can be divisive. i call myself black, because black is a color, and i love color, and color transcends nationality, and because the human animal is mostly a visiually oriented thing (as opposed to historically oriented).

politics-i hate the word politics because of what it stands for. i define politics as the process that inhibits justice and, well, common sense.

that's all i got for right now. there are more words, in life, that i dislike, but these are the ones at the forefront of my mind.

Labels: other stuff, so opinionated

Posted by call me aja at 6:55 PM | Permalink | Comments