Seriously, people does this really need to be said? Apparently so. It didn't work for Steven Segal or Michael Bolton so what pray tell makes people think this look is even remotely attractive? Sure we can all agree that the mullet of the 80s was scandalous in its own right. We all prayed to God that trend would never ever return. Unfortunately, the next iteration of that fiasco can be seen above. So for all who have ever wondered, here are my two cents: if you are a man at no point and again I say at no point whatsoever should your hair be at varying lengths such that certain sections can be put into a ponytail while others cannot. Not only is it not acceptable; it's not cute. Let it go brotha...let that back bit of hair go.

Past Faux-Pas
- Geometry Gone Wild
- The Grizzly Bear
- The Blue-Haired, Gun Tights Wonder
- Stripey Girl
- The Pimp
]]> 2007-09-04T03:06:59Z 2007-08-08T07:32:36Z tag:,2007:/1.748 2007-08-08T07:32:36Z

Mom: Hey Ambra, remember that Cap'n Crunch Commercial you filmed?

Me: Totally. Would you believe I called Quaker Oats a few years ago to try to track down the tape?

Mom: And?

Me: They were very helpful. I described to the them the commercial, the production company, the year, and the cast: a little black girl and a white boy. They quickly sent me a tape. I popped it in and unfortunately it was ANOTHER little black girl and a white boy. Who knew Quaker Oats had such diversity.

Mom: Did you tell them it was for the Christmas Crunch cereal commercial in particular?

Me: Yes, but maybe I got the year wrong. Oh well. One day when I'm famous and on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno", they will track it down for me and play it as one of my "embarrassing clips."

Mom: Did you know you made like $8,000 from shooting that commercial?

Mom: Yeah that was union pay for the actual day of the shoot. Your residual income was like $8,000 for the holiday months.

Mom: I know. We spent it on your private school tuition.

Me: Without my permission? What if I didn't want to spend it on that? I mean, I was in 8th grade; I wasn't exactly a little kid.

Mom: Private school was expensive. The money was invested well.

Me: Man, I feel like Gary Coleman up in here.

Nine months ago today, I embarked upon a wonderful journey. Though unremarkable to most, a nine month anniversary pales in comparison to my parents' twenty-six year marriage and especially my grandparents' fifty years of matrimony. Heck, we're not even a year in but every milestone for me is pretty tremendous considering the dismal standards our society has for marriage. Don't get me wrong. We deserve no pats on the back. It's not as though I'm waiting for the moment when I can yell out "Hey, we've made it longer than Tori Spelling!" God help me if I ever use celebrity schizophrenia as my measuring rod for a successful marriage.

Throughout our engagement, Andre and I battled the evil forces called "wedding planning." If ever there were a shady racket to be found it is in the wedding industry. Only could a bridal salon get away with charging $300 for a piece of tulle by calling it a "bridal veil." During the whole arduous (but fun) process, we constantly reminded ourselves not to spend more time planning our wedding (an event) than we did planning our marriage (a lifetime). I would say we did about 60/40 and the result was an awesome wedding and thus far, an awesome marriage.

I haven't been at it long, but I can already say marriage ranks second on my list of best decisions I ever made. No doubt the single life is fantastic. If you are not married, live it up. Being unmarried has its own set of wonderful benefits and let me just say I managed to milk every last drop out of those benefits and I'm so glad I did.

By many standards, I got married young. Though at 24 (the age I was when I wed), in some countries I'd have five children and a goat by now. I am of the mind that maturity more than age should determine when a person is ready for marriage. I am also of the mind that history has proven the power a collective society has in determining exactly what the age of maturity is. In America and in many other countries, we associate the age of responsibility with the ability to drive a car, buy cigarettes, alcohol and obtain credit--not exactly good indicators of much of anything let alone maturity of an individual. One generation casts low expectations to the next, expectations are met and those expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Today, we generally deem the average 21-year-old very immature.

I always knew I'd marry young. My general nature is fairly driven so a casual relationship here or there would never fly with me. If I was going to be in a relationship, it was for the long haul or not at all. The upside to that perspective was that we went into our marriage without a lot of the usual baggage. If I had to make one recommendation to all you future married-folk out there, the less baggage the better. I would do the baggage-free dance if one existed, but I think the funky chicken will suffice. If you have baggage, spend some time lightening your load before you join with another person in holy matrimony. It will make a world of difference.

I've struggled with how much of this aspect of my life I want to share online and I'm not sure I've come to a clear resolution. One thing I know for sure - we are in dire need of more clear-minded voices speaking out on the topic of marriage so if I can contribute my humble bit, I most certainly will.

So happy 9-month anniversary my dear. Here's to many many more (except in the future I would prefer to celebrate in 12-month increments, thanks).

To describe a spelling bee as "enthralling" is probably teetering on the edge of sanity, but I must say every time the national bee rolls around I am giddy. Between the bizarre mnemonics, the fainting, and the Alex Trebekian-bred announcers, I just can't get enough. As nerdy as that statement may sound, it speaks volumes that this year the bee made its way out of ESPN's weekend-crappy-time-slot obscurity and into prime-time on a major network station. If only we could get Dick Vitale to call the play-by-play next year. That would be one entertaining event.

If you hadn't noticed, spelling is now "hot." Well, sort of. I doubt the masses will be lining up for autographs of spelling bee champions any time soon. I sometimes wonder if there is a direct correlation with spelling aptitude and social awkwardness. Awkwardness certainly abounded on that Washington D.C. stage last night. Then again, I'd like to see any adult (myself included) stand up on stage in front of millions of viewers and spell "autochthonous" (the winning word of 2005) with such finesse. I reckon the nationwide acceptance and appreciation of such talent and ability has grown leaps and bounds over the last few years. Surely that's thanks to ventures like last year's fabulous, though not so blockbuster film--"Akeelah and the Bee"--a movie I am not ashamed to admit made me shed a tear or three. It's also a movie that despite rave reviews and the public blessing of "Reverend" Oprah Winfrey, didn't fare so well at the box office. Black girls winning spelling bees isn't quite as appealing as black women whoring themselves for Academy Awards, I guess.

The presence of "diversity" among the spellers is a matter of perspective. When I worked for Google, a large percentage of the company's employees were East Indian. Needless to say, naan is now one of my staples. Most companies would put a feather in their diversity cap for pulling such numbers. In the tech world however, it has become quite clear that a large presence of East Indian employees is the rule and not the exception. So diversity for Google meant recruiting more women and more Americans of color. In that same vein, I often notice that at spelling bees, diversity abounds, but really, it doesn't. The statistics are fascinating. Some commonalities found among the majority might be: quality of school district, socioeconomic status, and presence of two parents in the home. I'd be curious to know exactly what are the makings of a typical championship speller. I won't lie; year after year I wonder why we don't see any more black students up there competing for the title. The "Why" is probably a much bigger question than I'm willing to discuss here. This year, however, I was very pleased to see Kennyi Aouad, 11, of Terre Haute, Indiana, a "fly" in the proverbial buttermilk of academic competitions. I almost cried. Clearly spelling bees are emotional occasions for me.

I also shouldn't fail to mention this year's winner, Evan O'Dorney, whose winning word "serrefine" seemed to present little challenge to his studious mind. But my pick of the night was the lone girl in the top ten, firecracker Isabel Jacobsen of Madison, Wisconsin. I can't help but keep solidarity with my chromosome sisters. She made it into the top three spellers and to boot she is one smart cookie. In her video profile aired during the bee, she mentioned one of her favorite words I will soon be adding to my arsenal:

"Kakistocracy": Rule by the least-able or least-principled of citizens; a form of government in which the people least qualified to control the government are the people who control the government.

Until then, I'll be reading my dictionary, trying to catch up for next year.

When it comes to freedom of expression, educator Garrard McClendon is breaking the language barrier. He's written a book, "Ax or Ask: The African American Guide to Better English" where he tackles many of the falsehoods about language that have been perpetuated in media, education, and the sub-culture. Not only that, he's done what most of us have failed to do: invade the public school system. McClendon has formulated a curriculum that teaches students how to speak proper English by focusing on correcting commonly mispronounced words and bad grammar. As can be expected, he's come under a bit of fire for specifically targeting black students. Although it is becoming quite clear that such a curriculum is needed in many other circles, his goal was to target the group of people being most affected by improper speech. For high schoolers in particular it could mean missing out on college scholarships, future jobs, and more importantly, the opportunity to say something meaningful to the world.

My dear Seattle has been in the news quite a bit as of late thanks to American Idol. Earlier this year, Seattle made headlines when Seattle Public Schools was in search of a new superintendent. Trouble came a brewin' when it was suggested that potential candidates have "a clear understanding of institutionalized oppression." At first glance, I don't see too much wrong with that statement. A little more digging and it was revealed that the implications of such a statement were convoluted to say the least. Last year, in a statement released by the school system's "Office of Equity and Race Relations", racism was defined as such (emphasis added):

"Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as "other", different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers."

I've written quite a bit here about my sincere appreciation for the English language. Upon mastering it, I believe language, no matter where its national origin, is a very powerful knife. Language can cut very deeply. It can scar, wound and unnecessarily mark those who speak, hear or read it. When used as a butcher knife it can be fairly destructive. Contrarily, when wielded by the right person, language can be used as a scalpel to carefully dissect thoughts, expose hearts, and bring understanding and revelation to a culture desperately in need of a clear voice on just about everything.

Don't get me wrong. I am no language purist. I appreciate the newness of speech and the wacky words and expressions added to my vocabulary on a daily basis. I think the Urban Dictionary is a treasure trove of hipster nerdom. The beauty in being able to speak proper English is the license you receive to speak it improperly. In fact, some of the greatest writers in history consistently violated Strunk & White's rules of proper grammar, but did so with such intelligence and eloquence the average person could see the mark of master wordsmithing.

Every day, multiple times a day and depending on how I feel I might slip into my lax speech and be speakin' bad grammar usin' words like ain't and edumacation and dropping the terminal consonant off the verbs. The fact that I can analyze my own slang makes me a nerd. It also makes me a master of my words. I thank my private school education and my parents for that. When I slip into slang it's usually due to cultural idioms or because I'm chatting with my husband or friend and doing it for emphasis. I think of it as a dialect--my urban Seattleite version of patois. The caveat to my intermittent and intentional misuse of the English language is that I would never under any circumstances do so in the presence of those who didn't know I knew otherwise. Half the language battle is knowing where and when to speak appropriately. The other half is knowing how to speak appropriately. Therein lies the rub.

A recent opinion column in the Los Angeles Times affirmed my long held suspicion. Theodore Dalrymple writes:

The cult of celebrity is not new, but it is increasing in its scope and effect. At one time, people wanted to simply gawp at the famous, and possibly dress like them. Now, many take their moral and political opinions from them.

As though it weren't bad enough that Rose O'Donnell might be vying for a slot as the new host of "The Price Is Right," now R&B singer/pedophile, R. Kelly is comparing himself with Martin Luther King.

In a recent interview with Hip-Hop Soul Magazine, Kelly said,"I'm the Ali of today. I'm the Marvin Gaye of today. I'm the Bob Marley of today. I'm the Martin Luther King, or all the other greats that have come before us. And a lot of people are starting to realize that now."

Quite possibly cold hard evidence R. Kelly is smoking crack. To that end, he is possibly right in comparing himself to Bob Marley and Marvin Gaye. Kelly and his publicist have been back-peddling since the New York Post first ran the quote. Kelly's publicist has since clarified that Kelly was simply pointing out that he's a prolific songwriter of his time.

Generally speaking, writing and producing a lot of hit songs isn't exactly the qualification for joining the ranks of Martin Luther King. And if I recall correctly, Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay) was quite the outspoken activist during his reign as heavyweight champion. He was outspoken against the Vietnam War among many other things and despite my issues with the Nation of Islam and just about everything he stood for, at least the man stood for something. That is a heck of a lot more than Mr. Kelly can say.

What disturbs me more than anything is the fact that people (who deserve to be in jail) such as Kelly and others who shall remain nameless continue to feel comfortable talking up their own egos because there is little to no accountability. Instead, the masses still buy albums and bother interviewing him for the sake of selling magazines. To boot, so-called advancement organizations like the NAACP are idiotic enough to nominate the man for an image award while he was under indictment for charges related to child pornography. Way to go NAACP.

It is interesting to me how rarely we make the connection between talent and the need for character. It's as though a person's giftedness or talent somehow make them exempt from moral standards or accountability for their sphere of influence. If our culture is truly drawing opinions and moral conclusions from such characters, doling out moral byes is dangerous ground to be treading.

Perhaps it is accurately fitting that R. Kelly nicknamed himself the "Pied Piper of R&B." A little research on the history of the "Pied Piper of Hamelin" folklore reveals an ending that is terribly eerie:

"While the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe again, this time attracting the children of Hamelin. One hundred and thirty boys and girls followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again."

We certainly are in interesting times. When Woodrow Wilson was elected president in 1913, he didn't have to participate in presidential debates on television nor did he have to worry about his word flubs or neck fat appearing on YouTube the next day. Moreover, many have speculated that if the American public had known Wilson suffered such severely debilitating consequences from his stroke, they may not have elected him at all. I'm no scholar on presidential history so I can't comment on whether or not this was good or bad in the case of Wilson, but I would speculate that such a situation probably wouldn't have been good for someone like say...Bill Clinton. Though the meaning of "good" here is entirely relative; no television persona and platform on which to be "outed" in front of millions of viewers = great for Clinton, however terribly bad for the American people.

With the advent of Web 2.0, every statement, every word, and every misplaced hair is irrevocable. Not only is it irrevocable, if you're a public figure, it's cached, uploaded, downloaded, edited, spliced, and played on repeat from now until all of eternity so you had darn well better get that sentence out correctly the first time. So what do we get when these are the times in which we live? Presidential Action Figures. But not just any action figures. These ones have perfect white teeth, shellacked hair and various strings you can pull to hear a selected catch phrase or opinion on pet "political" issues. In the case of this week's Republican debate, the phrase heard when pulling said string always included the phrase "I am more conservative than you."

I didn't watch the first Democratic debate so I can't make a fair comparison, but given the fact that Hillary Rodham Rodham Rodham Rodham Clinton was present, I suspect the same party-toting banter was carried on - except in Hilary's case, she wasn't an action figure but more like a blow up doll. Or better yet -- a large balloon on a parade float, displayed for all to see and not very useful for much of anything. And while I'm in free-form writing, beginning sentences with conjunctions and whatnot, can I just go on record and say that America as whole (or even a half) is so not going to elect a woman as president? Ain't. Gonna. Happen. So by all means, please give Hillary the nomination so all the other nations can laugh at us.

With the parade float in the mix, as well as Senator Obama (whose racial credibility is going to flip flop almost as much as Hillary's maiden name), this promises to be quite an interesting year. Can't say I'm looking forward to seeing Presidential Myspace pages and all, but I am quite curious to see how this all pans out.

Until then, I'm not holding my breath on any one candidate. There are far more important and interesting things going on in the world and I am certain the formaldehyde will preserve the candidates until we get closer to the election next year.

So much has happened in my life between now and the last time I posted. Good stuff, but granted nothing I could've anticipated would keep me from one of the loves of my life for such an extended period of time. I am now 25 (a young twenty five though dangit), married and still pretty much as rebellious as ever just perhaps a bit wiser, more mature, slightly darker, and most definitely humbled. Much of the last year off has been spent planning a humdinger of a wedding (approximately 400+ attendees and if you're thinking of doing the same let me spare you the stress and just yell "DON'T!") and trying my best to adjust to a new husband (still feels weird typing that) who vehemently insists on putting ketchup on his tacos. I mean honestly, have you ever heard of such a thing?

That thing my parents used to tell me about time and how quickly it flies when you're older; it's amazing how proportionately true that statement gets over time.

The thing that utterly blows my mind is that we're coming up on another election year. Where in the WORLD did four years go? This blog really first started taking off around the 2004 election. I donned my Bush t-shirt with the rest of 'em and honestly, I don't regret for one second casting my first and second votes for George W. Bush. I don't pretend to understand the entirety of what's taken place over the last four years. To be quite honest, it kinda gives me a headache and only reaffirms my deeply held conviction that I am no political junkie and this is not exactly a political blog; it's a worldview blog. What I can say is that the political climate has very much changed. The culture has changed. Dare I even say the agenda has changed as well?

I myself am interested to see what opinions and ideas once again take shape on this here blog. I've gone back to read some of the older posts and it's somewhat like a time capsule -- equivalent to pulling platform shoes and bellbottoms out of an old dusty chest. I mean, who the heck is talking about Alan Keyes anymore? Is he even still alive? What about Bill Cosby's pound cake speech? That was so two years ago.

Needless to say, I have some catching up to do and it's hard to know where to start. One thing is for sure, when you haven't written anything in well over a year, there aren't a heck of a lot of people who still subscribe to your feed or even stop by to see if you have anything to say. It's kinda cool because it's like starting this blog all over again. That's all from me tonight. Lots more on the horizon.

Hope you'll stick around (again). I'm glad to be back.

P.S. It's 11:15 pm PST on Monday, May 14th so I still made my deadline. Ha!

And you guys thought I was kidding when I said I was making major adjustments...

On a daily basis, tragedies, every day situations, and the decay of humanity are sensationalized and emotionalized in order to produce ratings. Whereas at one point the daily news was intended to inform us of the world's happenings, nowadays it seems to be nothing more than tabloid-style prophecies of death, fires, missing children, rape, car accidents, war, and everything wrong with the world. Is it true that these things are occurring on a regular basis? Yes. But as I've often lamented here before, if the news reports were centered on the great and exciting things taking place throughout the world, far fewer people would watch.

Can you imagine a news broadcast dedicated entirely to celebrating the fabulous things taking place throughout the earth? We could call it "Extreme Makeover: World Edition!" Three times a day the show would report on families that made their final mortgage payments, people who were on their deathbeds and then completely healed of cancer, lost children found, unemployed finding jobs, miracle car crashes where the passenger walks away unharmed, the victories in war, stolen money returned 100-fold, and interview every day people getting out of debt.

Too bad it'd never take.

There is something really sick and twisted about human nature that is actually pacified, if not downright happy to watch other people in their sufferings. We've all done it before. We've secretly sat back as we watched the latest horrific news report thinking to ourselves, "Man, I'm sure glad that wasn't me." The stress of our days and cares of our lives are at least made somewhat better by the knowledge that it wasn't our house that got robbed last night or our child shot to death on the street.

If our selfish news-watching highs weren't enough cause for concern, we always have our desensitization to fall back on. I recall during Hurricane Katrina, I eventually just turned the television off. It wasn't that I didn't care. It was that I knew my own limitations. The degree to which I personally could take action to help that situation was not aided by my television. You can only watch people in desperation for so long before the repetitive images of the same interviews and footage begin to numb you to the reality that people don't have to live that way.

I think we actually believe that we have the best of intentions. We want to be informed, we want to be sympathetic and we want to be spurred on to some sort of emotion, be it rage, sadness, or even consciousness. These motives notwithstanding, I believe our mass media does nothing more than reinforce lies in our minds that "what we see is what we get." Things are just going to get worse so we might as well protect our own and throw up a prayer for the rest of our world.

The problem with this effect is that it calls few people to accountability for their ability to change their world. Rarely do I see media honestly reporting on the cause/effect nature of many of country's most tragic events. We hear the media asking questions like "How could this happen?" or "Who's to blame for this?" In fact, we ask those questions ourselves. Yet little energy is spent answering the questions "Does my city really have to function like this, and what needs to be done to change it?"

To some extent, there is no incentive to change the way our society functions. We accept that violence and murder rates will increase and there are entities in this world that actually thrive off high crime rates. Where there's crime, surely there is a compelling news story, right?

The answer to the real questions could put our local news affiliates out of business. Even worse, it could put our low self-esteem "At least I'm doing better than 'them'" attitude in jeopardy of losing its Linus blanket.

(Image Copyright: Peanuts)

Today I received a reader email that apparently sums up the heart of my "State of the Blog Address" better than I could. The reader's identity has been concealed for his privacy. He writes:

I want to clarify that I wasn't inferring that personality isn't an important aspect of media. It is. What I was inferring is that all media has some sort of worldview it is pushing either subliminally or blatantly. That remains the most important thing because ideas have eternal value; personalities doesn't. If everything is merely personality-driven, then why the heck are we alive? If that's the case, I quit nykola.com today because this is a complete waste of my time and yours.

People who disagree with everything Rush Limbaugh has to say aren't generally going to tune in daily to his show. His ideas and philosophy are a big part of his draw. And yet although I agree with many of his points, somehow even I can't stomach 5 minutes of him.

I am definitely of the belief that personality is what flavors the world. Personalities help feed us ideas and messages we might not otherwise accept--for better or worse. What I'm ultimately against is people denying creativity and adopting other personalities for the sake of the perceived benefits. I mean, why does so much talk radio sound exactly the same? Surely everyone doesn't talk just like that.

Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I think it's dangerous to build monuments around personalities. What happens when that person is gone? Does their mission still go on, or does it die with the personality?