Monday, October 09, 2006

TWO BLESSINGS IN ONE DAY!





http://www.nhlcyberfamily.org/special/happydance.htm

BLESSING #1
I GOT MY
first royalty check! Can you see me doing my Snoopy happy dance (click on the above hyperlink)! I can't believe I earned out my advance! [For those of you to which I owe money, it isn’t that much so don’t get TOO happy.] I’m going to open up a new savings account (since I was forced to close my last one when I got hit with an unexpected property tax bill a few months ago). I’m also going to do something nice for myself since I’ve been suffering from a skin infection (which has required numerous medicines including an extended course of antibiotics).

BLESSING #2
NALAC (NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
of Latino Arts & Culture) has selected me to receive a grant to support my third novel, tentatively entitled Negrita Means Love. The award will be announced at the 2006 Sixth Annual NFA Conference on October 13, 2006 in San Antonio, Texas, which unfortunately I will not be able to attend due to scheduling conflicts. (I really wanted to go too, so I could visit my girl, TEE, who is in the National Guard stationed in a VA hospital down there.)

THIS DOUBLE DOSE of news is just what I needed considering I’ve been feeling kind of depressed about my lack of funds. Not to say that I view money as an anti-depressant, and the only blessings are monetary ones, but this living check-to-check is KILLING me. I’m used to having money left over after paying bills, but it’s been impossible to save ANYTHING this past year, and I REALLY don’t know how much longer I could do it.

GOD IS GOOD.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

PRETTY PEOPLE OF COLOR WITH PROBLEMS

I KNOW THAT this is supposed to be a blog dedicated to my life as an author, but I couldn’t resist commenting on a recent television network’s latest addition to the fall line-up (this isn’t the only show I have an issue with, but the one that happened to keep me up the night after it aired).

THE PROGRAM IN question is “Brothers and Sisters” about a family (White, of course) of sisters (2, I think) and brothers (3, I think) with secrets (of course), that loses its family patriarch at the end of the first episode. After watching the program (which wasn’t very good), I couldn’t help thinking of that old Mad TV spoof, “Pretty White People with Problems.” The spoof was a parody of all the programs featuring -- what else? -- pretty white people with problems (i.e. Popular, Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill). Television executives seem to think that we will watch these “clone” shows because even though the actors happen to look like Calista Flockhart and Patrick Dempsey, they have problems just like us.

SO AFTER WASTING an hour that I’ll never get back, I lay in bed thinking, I am so-o-o TIRED of watching “pretty white people with problems.” Where are the Pretty “People of Color” with Problems? Like a family of multi-colored African American members, or a Latino American family that isn’t Mexican or Puerto Rican (how about Dominicans or Columbians for a change — without the stereotypes that are stressed: poor, drug-dealing, or a family of boxers). Or how about an interracial couple who adopted multi-cultural kids who are all grown up -- with problems! Maybe even one who is handicapped. Wow, what a concept! Are there really families like this? You wouldn’t know it looking at TV world.

CONAN O'BRIEN (ONE of my favorite comedians) commented the other night that in keeping with television tradition, the show “Brothers and Sisters” doesn’t feature either (brothers or sisters in the African American vernacular). To those of you who may think this a racist view, think of it this way: imagine that every time you turned on the TV, every time you went to the movies, every time you opened up a magazine, ALL you saw on commercials, programs, and the news, and EVERY single person or actor was Asian. How would you feel?