Sardonic Sistah Says

“Nay, Nay!” J called from the other room.  “Come here you gotta watch this!”

“I’m washing dishes,” I yelled back.

“Hurry up!” I walk into the other room and tell him it better be good.  He is pointing at the television. 

“Look!” he said with a big smile on his face.

If J was prone to man crushes I’d say he had one on Hok.  The season Hok was on So You Think You Can Dance  J watched until Hok was eliminated.  I don’t think he watched the show last year.

Hok was back on TV on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew which is now J’s favorite dance show.  His favorite crew from the first season was Jabbarwockeez, who were really good.  SuperCrew was a close second.  From season 2 his favorite was So Real Cru.  He grumbled when they lost claiming they couldn’t let another all Asian group win.

So now Hok is on ABDC’s season 3 with what looks like a nearly all Asian dance group.  He even brought another SYTYCD contestant, Dominic who renamed himself D-Trick.   The group is called the Quest Dance Crew.  I called them ringers.  They’ll at least come in the top three if Beat Freaks doesn’t beat them.

After the performance J is hyped.  He starts going on about how Asians (Koreans specifically) have taken over breaking.

“Blacks started it,” J said.  “But Koreans have perfected it.”

“They perfected it?” I said getting defensive.  “Who said it needed to be perfected? Who said we aren’t still holding it down?”

Perhaps J has something.   Last year in Salon.com an article about the resurgence of the breakdancing craze cited South Korean dance crews as taking their B-boying seriously with dancers practicing five hours a day, seven days a week. 

“Of the top six or seven crews in the world, I’d say half of them are from Korea,” says Christopher “Cros One” Wright, 33, an American dance promoter and b-boy to Salon.com.

Even Hollywood is getting in on the act.  With dance movies being really hot right now South Korean hip hop dancers Gamblers are slated to come out in a movie later this year where the group are matched up against former members of B2K . ( If the Gamblers are this hot why B2K? And not even Omarion but dudes no one talks about anymore.)

I can concede on giving J this one, but I will never believe that he was a B-Boy tearing up the streets of Cleveland back in the day.  I’ll have to see some video footage for that one.

We eagerly await the outgoing of one president and the entrance of a new one.  There’s a little less than 25 hours until Bush’s reign is over.

But that is not what today is for, counting down the minutes until Bush is gone.  Today is the national celebration of MLK’s 80th birthday (which was actually last week on Jan 15).  For many it’s just another day off from work or school  but many participate in  the Day of Servicewhere people volunteer in their communities.  Michelle Obama said her family will be out in their new city volunteering at different places.

I didn’t take the day off.  I’m here at work so other people can come in and celebrate the day.  But next year, for once, I think I might go to the MLK breakfast or try to get to the parade or at least one speech.  Although I’m not going to lie, I would like to sleep in a little and I probably will.  But I can get up and go volunteer for a couple hours somewhere. 

On this last day of less than 25 hours of Bush all I can think about is the long road we have in front of us.  Maybe reflecting might serve us all better.

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence, or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who posses power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves in the long and bitter but beautiful struggle for a new world. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

May our country, on the brink of war, take to heart the final refrain of America, the Beautiful: Martin Luther King 4 April 1967

America! America!
God mend thine ev’ry flaw.
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

 

I thought this was the 21st century but I guess some want to turn the clock back to 1972.

I guess it was good year.  It was a time when black dudes with fros fought against “The Man”.   But do I want to be transported back there via Black Dynamite?  Mmm.. Michael Jai White is all out sexy and the film seems funny as hell.  I guess I can time travel as long as I don’t have to view the movie in the old Regal which was the movie theater in the hood when I was growing up.  Folks would smoke weed during the double features, your feet would stick to the ground from the excess of spilled pop on the floor, and rats sometimes would venture out during the movie.

(sigh)

Yeah, those were good times.

Produced by Warner Brothers and starring one of Bollywood’s hottest stars (Ashkay Kumar) Chandi Chowk to China marries Bollywood song and dance with the high action of martial arts.

Released world wide on January 17, the movie may finally get western audiences grooving to bollywood music.  What is it about?  Jeff Yang wonders why no one has ever thought of the combination before as her explains the movie  as

And though its ingredients seem random — A lowly Indian food vendor revealed as the reincarnation of an ancient Chinese warrior! Separated-at-birth twins, one a dance queen, the other a kung-fu femme fatale! Bolly-style dance routines in the Forbidden City! The god Ganesha embodied in the form of a potato! — like the tastiest culinary creations of both cultures, the oddly juxtaposed textures and flavors come together in surprisingly harmonious union.

And a Reuter’s blog says it relies heavily on the Bollywood formula:

Now whether you like this film or not depends on whether you like the “formula”. Do you like the twins separating-at-birth-and-meeting-20-years-later formula? Or perhaps the I-will-avenge-my-father’s-death formula? Take your pick because “Chandni Chowk to China” has taken each and every cliché from Hindi cinema of the 70s and 80s and repackaged it.

Akshay Kumar plays Sidhu, a simpleton cook in Delhi’s famed Chandni Chowk, who fumbles his way through life and is waiting for the stroke of luck that will change his life. Through a chance encounter possible only in Hindi cinema, he meets two natives of China. They are convinced Sidhu is the reincarnation of the ancient warrior Liu Sheng, who will rescue them from the clutches of evil villain Hojo.

The movie might do better with millenials than those in the over 30 market.  Movie musicals like High School Musical and Cheetah Girls is really popular with tweens, teens and early twenty somethings and younger people are more open to the cross over cultual movies than older people are.  the only problem I can see is the language barrier (considering they opt not to English dub the film) and the film plot being more convulted and farfetched than Glitter.  But then who listens to the words if the storyline has a good beat?