I just wanted to chime in on this whole talkshow host crap. Who cares? I’m not sure I do but…

Remember Johnny Carson? I do.

I remember when I was old enough to be able to stay up and watch him. I remember that, despite how unfunny Johnny Carson was sometimes, he was Johnny Carson and everyone watched just because. I remember when Johnny Carson announced he was leaving his late night show in 1992 and even though I only half ever bothered to watch it anymore, I thought it was a void that would never be filled.

I was always kinda hoping that Joan Rivers would get that job. I really liked her and never missed a night that she filled in for Johnny. When she got her own show in 1986, I watched that until it got canceled.

I remember when Joan Rivers left and/or got fired from her talkshow and Arsenio Hall replaced her in 1987. I think that was the first time I realized I didn’t HAVE to watch Johnny Carson. I watched Arsenio EVERY night and during commercials would turn to Johnny to see what he was up to. Arsenio’s guest were hipper, younger, blacker and even though it was obvious that the show was based on the Carson format, the show was uniquely Arsenio’s.

I remember when NBC announced that Jay Leno would be getting the Tonight Show and not David Letterman. I boycotted Jay Leno because everyone knew that Johnny wanted Letterman to have that job. I was a fan of Letterman from his train-wrenck of a show, Late Night with David Letterman. When David announced that he was going to CBS and that they’d be renovating the old Ed Sullivan theatre, me and some friends went by there to just check it out.

The theatre had been abandoned for a while, but now you could see that people were in there working and they had cleaned up the outside. We talked to some cops that were standing guard outside. They said people had been asking them about the reopening a lot. Everyone thought it was going to be a great idea.

After Arsenio was gone, I was still on Letterman’s side but would watch Jay Leno if he had on a guest I really liked. When NBC announced that Conan O’Brien would be replacing Jay Leno, I was a little upset. Conan was one of those shows I could never REALLY get into, because he wasn’t funny. I thought NBC was treating Jay shabbily, when i realized it wasn’t his decision to leave. But what could you expect from a network that treated David Letterman the same way. I also thought maybe this was karma coming back to bite Jay Leno in the ass, even though Letterman had forgiven him.

2009 came and Jay’s time was up. NBC really pissed me off putting Jay on in primetime because all my 10pm crime dramas were taken off and/or moved to 9pm. I felt sorry for Jay, but he was really cramping my style and I just couldn’t get into him doing the monologue at 10pm. And as for Conan, I’m wondering if saying that he could bite my ass in hell is a little too strong. Needless to say I never watched a single episode, no matter who the guest was because I thought it they were REALLY anybody, they’d show up on Letterman eventually.

Somewhere along the way God decided that he needed to show me proof of life and a few weeks after Tyra Banks decided that she was quitting her talk show, NBC announced that they were cancelling the Jay Leno show. I thought I couldn’t ask for more than that and then I started hearing buzz that NBC might be moving Jay Leno back to 11:30, leaving Conan out in the cold or up against Craig Ferguson. And even though there are many days when Craig struggles to be funny, I live for puppet week and remember that Conan can bite my ass in HELL!

Then one night I’m on the phone with Boriqua Boy and he’s telling me that he saw an episode of George Lopez’s talk show and that it was funny as hell. I don’t get to see that show because I have mortal television. So I went to see if I could see an episode online. And while the Leno, Conan thing was turning into a hot mess, I did manage to see an episode, the one with Jackie Chan, and Boriqua Boy was right. It was funny as hell. I hadn’t laughed that much during a late night show since the premiere of the Arsenio Hall show. And then I got to thinking…

Why the f@#$ do I give a s@#$ about Leno or Conan. It’s 2010. There a biracial black president. When did this become a choice between McCain and Hillary? How did we go from Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Arsenio Hall to David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, Carson Daly and Jimmy Kimmel? Where’s the love? Where’s the diversity? Why wasn’t George Lopez even considered for that job???!!!

OK. OK. Maybe George would have to get rid of the “Creepy Little White Girl” character. And maybe muttering in Spanish under his breath wouldn’t fly to well with the folks in the Midwest. But right now, George is bringing the funny and he hands down has the funkiest theme song, the only goatee in the bunch and the best dance moves.

Letterman vs Lopez on network TV. Now that sounds like a late night fight worth paying for.

You can see some clips from the Lopez Tonight on Hulu.com at:

http://www.hulu.com/search?query=Lopez+Tonight&st=1

Honorable Mention goes to The Wanda Sykes Show. I watched the first episode and it was a bit of a train wreck, kinda like the show it replace, Talk Show with Spike Feresten, but this week I actually missed SNL to watch it because Aunt Viv and crazy ass George Wallace were on and I’m glad I did.

Remember that sound I told you about… that sound that sound that black people can make? I heard that sound again. I’ve been hearing it for a while now, but had no idea what it was. I was out running errands around the holidays and a bit of it came on in the car radio, not enough to identify song, lyrics or artist, but just enough to haunt me. An hour later I heard a bit of it in the supermarket, but again, not enough of it to identify what I was hearing, so I moved on. But I went to one more store, looking for Fox’s U-bet vanilla syrup so that I could make soy milk egg creams and I heard it again, not enough to help me, just enough to drive me insane.

I got home and had the melody stuck in my head and then I realized that in less than a 4 hour period, I had heard the sound at least 3 times. Could it be that I was listening to the same radio station one reason I stopped listening to radio in the car, that they were playing in the Associated and the Food Bazaar? I put on my CSI cap and asked my aunt what station she had on in the car. She said WBLS. I went to their website and clicked on the link to the 10 most played songs on their radio station.

Anthony Hamilton – “Point Of It All”
No. This song was soulful but had more of a Prince sound but not.

Mary Mary – “God In Me”
Wow. They have out a new song. I like them.

Whitney Houston – “Million Dollar Bill”
Definitely not a chick, so that lets Whitney out.

Chrisette Michele f/ Ne-Yo
Who???!!!

Michael Jackson – “This Is It”
Not Michael. I’d know if it was Michael.

Charlie Wilson - “Can’t Live Without You”
No. I know his voice. It’s not him.

Bebe and Cece Winans – “Close To You”
Too haunting to be a church song.

Usher – “Papers”
Fuck NO! This person could ACTUALLY sing.

Alicia Keys – “Doesn’t Mean Anything”
If you ain’t got nothing nice to say…

Maxwell – “Bad Habits”
Maxwell? Really? Could be, but I haven’t heard from Maxwell since back when Nekkid Boy was popular.

It only took one trip to the iTunes store to find out that sound that’s been haunting me all this time was Maxwell’s – Bad Habits. WOW. Um thanx WBLS for playing the same damn 10 songs over and over, because if you hadn’t, I never would have found that song listening to “Coast to Coast”.

BTW. Got the whole album. It’s GREAT! Welcome back Maxwell. Nice performance on Jay Leno too.

Below is suppose to be the official video. It looks like it has Kerry Washington in it. She’s hot, but the video in my head with Keith Hamilton Cobb was WAY hotter.

Speaking of nekkid boys… Have you heard of Nek? I heard a bunch of his songs on a video show that comes on channel 11-3 mortal television in New York City. The songs were all in Spanish I think, and very poppy, but not in a bad way. He has a great voice and even did a duet with my hunny bunny, Craig David. Since I liked pretty much every song they played by him, I got his 2004 greatest hits album, “L’anno Zero, the Best of…” My favorite on the album is “Sei Solo Tu”. The video below is the live version, but it’s as good, if not better than the studio version, so enjoy.

Oh and for those of you who want to know WTF a vanilla egg cream is…

First you need to know, you can’t get one in Chicago! or probably anywhere past the east coast.

Second, after all my years of drinking vanilla egg creams, I am alas, lactose intolerant and/or just straight up allergic to milk, but if you want to make a traditional egg cream, here’s a link to the recipe:

http://www.foxs-syrups.com/egg_cream.html

And now for what I’ve been drinking…

Rhonda’s BBGFB Vanilla Soy Milk Egg Cream

Use 1 large 8oz red plastic cup from Costco. (You can use a glass if you like, but I’ve got a shit load of those cups, so I pretty much use them for everything)

Squeeze about 1 inch of U-bet Vanilla syrup into the cup.

Add 1/8 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring if you’re a vanilla whore like I am.

Fill the cup about half way with Trader Joe’s plain soy milk. (I also tried it with Rice Dream. It’s a little watery, but the flavors the same).

Fill the rest of the cup with good ginger ale, the kind they serve in a bar, like Canada Dry or Schweppes.

Stir, but be warned, if you go with the soy milk over the rice milk, the concoction might bubble over the cup, so be prepared to suck some off the top.

I like mine chilled, so I put it in the freezer for about 20 minutes or put a couple of ice cubes in it. The Trader Joe’s soy milk holds up a little better under the ice.

Enjoy.

Oh and don’t drink one while you’re on the phone. Apparently, the slurping sound annoys people. Go figure!

Remember me? Big Black Girl from Brooklyn?

Yeah I know… I’m the one that’s suppose to be posting, but you know how it be sometimes. Busy as heck. Holidays roll up one right after the other. Socializing needs to be done. Not feeling well half of the time. And the next thing you know – you’re blog has moved on without you.

It’s been so long, I don’t know where to start.

1. Generalissimo Francisco Franco Michael Jackson is still dead.
2. Tiger Woods woke up black and Charlie Sheen woke up white.
3. Obama is still president and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
4. That demon spawn known as Tyra was fired from quit her talk show.
5. Idris Elba woke up fine as hell.
6. Joan Rivers is the new face of terrorism as well as everyone from Yemen.
7. 2012 turned out to be more like the Day Before Tomorrow, instead of the next “The Day After Tomorrow”.
8. David Tennent’s Dr. Who regenerated and not as David Tennent’s Dr. Who this time.
9. Brittney Murphy woke up dead, proving once and for all that crack is INDEED whack!!!
10. And while still high off my demon spawn Tyra news, NBC cancels Jay Leno’s prime time show and there are even talks that they  might put him back at 11:30pm, thus causing me to cease my boycott of Conan O’Brien. Mayan calendar my ass!

That’s all I got right now. I’m watching a REALLY bad movie called Megafault with Brittney Murphy and Eriq La Salle, but I’ll try to find some more time to post. I promise.

I was listening to Coast to Coast last night and they started the show with the usual new update and they mentioned that Ben Bernanke’s renomination for a second term as president of the federal reserve was being held up and that Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky went off on Bernanke at the Senate Banking Committee hearing.

Here’s a bit of what Bunning said:

Alan Greenspan refused to look for bubbles or to do anything other than create them. Likewise it is clear from your statements over the last four years that you failed to spot the housing bubble despite many warnings. Under your watch every one of the major banks failed or would have failed had you not bailed them out. After taking over the Fed you did not see any need for more substantial regulation of derivatives until it was clear that they were headed into the financial meltdown thanks in part to those products.

The video’s long, and contains Bernanke’s bogus response, but is worth a watch.

“Your fed has become the creature from Jekyll Island.” Now that’s some FAS! You know Seth Myers is working on his SNL quip as I type. Will update if he says something funny.

I was looking for something in my apartment and found a box of books that I got from my Aunt Louise that I was suppose to catalog.  Usually I use Shelfari for this, but recently my brother-in-law was telling me about this other WordPress friendly book cataloging site called LibraryThing.  One of the reasons he liked it more than Shelfari was because, unlike Shelfari, you can add your book cover images.   I was very interested in that, because after painstakingly making a list of all of my books on Shelfari, not only didn’t they have many of my older books, but  they didn’t have a lot of the covers either.

I wanted to test out LibraryThing, but wasn’t looking forward to relisting all of my books, so it made sense to me to test it with my Aunt Louise’s, much smaller, book collection.  There were a few things I noticed right away that were much kooler about Shelfari, but most of that was just cosmetic.

LibraryThing pluses:

• LibraryThings boasts an extensive list of book sources, including Amazon, The Library of Congress and over 650 other book databases around the world.  Between those sources and information that users have uploaded, out of Aunt Louise’s books, I was only unable to find 2 books out of 80 (not already listed) and I did have the ability to manually add those books.
• You can select book covers from Amazon.com or covers previously uploaded by users, but if you don’t see your cover, you can scan it and upload it for your use and the use of others.
• When you add a book or edit a book, there are MANY fields you can customize.  Aside from the standard title, author and ISBN, on LibraryThing you can add things like editor, illustrator, Library of Congress number, etc. I’ve been including the Standard Book Numbers on mine because a lot of old books don’t include the now standard International Standard Book Numbers.
• If you get stuck, LibraryThing has one of the best help Wiki’s around and a great user forum to search for answers.
• In addition to the standard, wishlist, currently reading, favorites, etc., you can add your own custom categories like: My Aunt Louise’s Books.

LibraryThing minuses:

• Those kool Shelfari bookcases to chose from.  But they do have a nice, customizable widget to add to your blog.
• It’s only free for the first 100 books and if you’re anything like me, you’ll have way more than a 100 books.  But the price to add more is nominal; $10 per year or $25 for life.  For that price, coupled with the ability to set up your own collections, make it well worth the lifetime price.

I might update this post when I start adding my own books to the LibaryThing, but for now, if you can get over those great looking Shelfari book shelves, I would say to give this Library Thingy a try.

Join and/or check out LibraryThing here:

http://www.librarything.com

Read the full LibraryThing wiki here:

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/HelpThing:Catalog

See the working widget on my site here:

http://www.rhonda.tv/?page_id=1125

This doesn’t need any explanation. Just watch. Enjoy the laugh.

You can also check out the HD version and/or the entire episode of SNL (Season 35 : Ep. 7) at Hulu.com

http://www.hulu.com/watch/110317/saturday-night-live-china-cold-open

So yesterday I was walking around my apartment, kinda listening, sorta watching NBC 4-2 because its usually less annoying than NBC 4-1. There were two hosts/reporters commenting on some of the latest news stories. One story was “Pet Alert: Fido’s Microchip May Not Work as Planned” by Ida Siegel. I stopped to listen to the story because it seemed a little odd.

Apparently dogs are being lost and then found and scanned for chips but the chips in the dogs have old information on them or no information at all because the owners didn’t register or update the information. I thought it was strange that someone who would go through the trouble of having their pet chipped, wouldn’t bother to ever register the chip. It took me about a minute before the conspiracy fairy whispered in my ear… maybe they’re chipping ALL the dogs, whether the owner requests it or not. Could that be possible?

While I’m processing the information, the hosts/reporters start riffing about the irresponsibility of the owners, and how much animal lovers love their pets, and I’m like, yeah yeah yeah and then one of the hosts/reporters, named Lynn Berry suggests… conspiracy drum roll please …why don’t we chip ALL the children… not the animal children, but people children, your children.

WTF? Huh?

I remember back in my Chicago days, when this chipping dog thing first came up and I think they were suggesting making chipping pets mandatory or something. So my friend, who had a dog, said, “Do they think we’re that stupid? They want to test it so that they can chip children.” I thought it was funny, while hoping it wasn’t true. But now, years later, I realize that I was just in denial. And as an African man I once yelled at said to me… “HOW’S THAT WORKING FOR YOU???!!!”

It’s not, but I was thinking I could still hold on to plausible deniability until I started seeing this crap!

H1N1 Vaccine Laced With RFID Chips?

Populations Prepped for Nano-Chips Inside Vaccine?

And you wonder why people want to be numb and live vicariously through their favorite sports team.

So I’m watching this weird movie. It’s in a couple of different languages, English included, but the subs are not helping me really understand what it’s about. So why don’t I turn it off? For one, it’s cinematically beautiful, very stylized, but not in a bad way like Ecks vs. Sever.

When I check IMDB to get some details on the film, I see that it’s by Jim Jarmusch and that alone, explains a lot of things, like why you don’t understand it, but can’t look away.

I don’t like or hate Jim Jarmusch, but I can say that if I knew this was one of his films going in, I probably wouldn’t have watched it and that would have been my loss. And again, not because the film is good, with Jarmusch, you’re never sure, but because the visuals are so stimulating, it gives you a sort of virtual high.

The movie stars Isaach De Bankolé, from Ghost Dog (another Jarmusch film), as the Lone Man. He seems like a hitman, but might be a diamond smuggler, I don’t know. All you see him doing in meeting weird people and exchanging matchboxes. There is a delightfully weird performance put in by Tilda Swinton as Blonde, one of the people he’s exchanging match boxes with. Each person the Lone Man runs into gives some weird, stunted, monologue and they all have strange names like Nude, Violin, Molecules, etc.

I’ve seen Isaach De Bonkole in movies and TV shows before and thought looks wise, that he was OK but Jarmusch films him in a way that makes him look like a handsome god. The suits he wears are beautifully tailored and fit him like he was born in them. The colors of the clothing do nothing but accentuate his beauty. There are many close up shots where you get to see the beauty in his asiany eyes, chiseled cheekbones, beautiful full lips and almost flawless skin. And as if for me personally, there a even close up shots of his beautifully strong hands.

I’m about half way through this film and I’m going to watch it till the end. I would say if you’re into Jim Jarmusch or arty films in general or you just like being visually stimulated, check out the The Limits of Control. But if you couldn’t sit through films like Dead Man (with Johnny Depp) or Mystery Train, you might want to skip it.

The Limits of Control

Christopher Doyle (Cinematographer). Universal Studios 2009, DVD, $12.86

Down by Law – Criterion Collection

Jim Jarmusch (Writer). Criterion 1986, DVD, $24.45

Dead Man

Robby Müller (Cinematographer). Miramax 1996, DVD, $7.69

Ghost Dog – The Way of the Samurai

Robby Müller (Cinematographer). Lions Gate 1999, DVD, $4.46

Mystery Train

Robby Müller (Cinematographer). MGM (Video & DVD) 1990, DVD, $5.98

Ballistic – Ecks vs. Sever

Andrew Stevens (Producer). Warner Home Video 2002, DVD, $3.90

You know I’m all about the conspiracy. What you might not know is that I don’t want the conspiracy to be true. But lately, it’s getting harder and harder to believe in all these coincidences, oops my bads and downright fabrications. The Yankees won and most of us were sufficiently distracted, but unless you have cable, broadcast television has dropped the ball of providing me the drug. So I’m left with almost less than nothing and have discovered radio, podcasts, audio books, George Green, Art Bell’s Coast to Coast and Project Camelot. And with a repertoire that already includes the likes of  Alex Jones, Michael Tsarion, Jordan Maxwell and David Icke, lets just say, it gets harder and harder to drink the koolaid.

But all that said, I still wake up every morning, wanting to believe in Santa Claus, Easter Bunnies, and that when I press the invisible communicator on my chest, Scotty will understand that I’m ready to come home. And then I check my aol email and someone sent me a link to this crap! (see below) and it compels me to create a new category for my blog called How the World Will End. UGH!

House Narrowly Passes Historic Health Care Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a massive overhaul of the American health care system Saturday night by a vote of 220 to 215. One Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, crossed the aisle to vote for it, while 39 Democrats joined the Republicans in opposing the measure.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called passage of the bill “an historic moment for our nation and for America’s families,” while Republicans warned that the bill will raise taxes, increase insurance premiums and make cuts to Medicare. An enormous round of applause broke out throughout the House chamber when the crucial 218th vote was cast to ensure the bill’s passage.

The $1.3 trillion-dollar bill would require individuals to buy health insurance, and would also require medium and large businesses to provide it to their employees. Consumers would be able to buy their insurance on an exchange, which would include a public insurance option for people who do not have access to insurance through their jobs. Low- and middle-income families would receive government subsidies to purchase insurance, which would be be paid for through tax increases on individuals making more than $500,000 per year, as well as fees on medical providers. Finally, the bill would prohibit insurance companies from dropping or denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions or cost of care.

Click HERE to read the rest of the Patricia Murphy article.

The thing that’s amazing me in this whole process is the Obama bashing and blaming the democrats when this is an obvious case of same shit, different day.

I remember back in the “Chicago Days” having to listen to haters say… of course the Yankee’s won. We could win too if we bought a team. Well I’m here to say that Cubs fan should try it once (or 27 times). It feels good. And it feels a lot better than holding out hope for 100 101 102 103 years.

This is how you do it...

and this is how it feels.

and this is what the loser team looks like when they realize they're about to head back to their loser locker room to shed their HIGH DEFINITION tears. But unlike you, at least they were IN the World Series!

Cubs fans should meet Ozzie Guillen at the airport when he lands so that they can get a whiff of what it smells like to be in the presence of a winner. Joe Girardi knows what it smells like. That's why he's smiling.

Thank you Steinbrenner family (for writing the checks) and thank you Yankees (for remembering why we pay you). And thank you Boricua Boy, for helping me understand the game a little more, even though I know you hate the Yankees and think ARod is Jeter’s butt boy.

And this is why it's dangerous to have Powerpoint, Photoshop and a brother-in-law that hates the Yankees but lets you go on about them anyway.

Weekend Update (with Seth Meyers)

This week in a positive sign that the economy may be recovering, New Yorkers started buying big ticket items again, like election (referring to Bloomberg) and championships.