#SoooooooulTrainAwards2012

Hey everybody!! I know I fell off my award show review grind but I wasn’t paying too much attention to the American Music Awards enough to write on it.  But I am back to review the Soooooooooooul Train Awards 2012.  The show this year was pretty good.  The funny teddy bear Cedric the Entertainer was the host.  Because the show was not presented live you didn’t get those crazy out-of-nowhere moments but still had some great moments.  As  I try to do with my award show reviews I will only hit what I thought were the highlights.

The Show Opener: I had the opportunity to be raised by older parents so I grew a love for Motown music as a young child.  With that said, I truly enjoyed the opener.  You had artists like Anthony Hamilton, Fantasia, and Marcus Canty giving tributes to artists of yesteryear.  And before I go any further, let me just say that Fantasia not only looked great but sounded great too!  She did a tribute to Aretha Franklin and it was stellar.  The producers hit the nail on the spot with opening this show with this tribute.  In a way, it was a tribute to Soul Train that helped get these acts out to the main stream.

The Awards: If you follow me on Twitter, you might have read my rant on pop acts being nominated in R&B categories (i.e. Rhianna).  What I liked about this show is that you saw R&B acts (Miguel, Tyrese, and Trey Songz) in R&B categories.  Award shows like the VMAs, Grammys, and even the BET awards put pop artists in R&B categories basically because they are black and popular and that’s not cool.  Last night, you saw the real faces of R&B.  The Soul Train Awards highlighted artists that do not get a lot of radio play but are doing different things in the music scene.  It is refreshing to see an award show that is not all about the mainstream performers.  It most definitely makes me want to look up the different artists and find some new music. 

N-E for Lifers: Bobby, Ricky, Ralph, Mike, Ronnie, and Johnny did their thing last night.  Soul Train presented New Edition with the well deserved Lifetime Achievement Award.  Ronnie bought out a good point when he said that he is glad that they are getting their accolades while they are still here.  I totally agree with this comment.  Too many times we see artists being awarded long after they are dead.  At first I was disappointed because I thought they were not going to perform but then they came back at the end to perform some of their biggest hits.  Even though I was not born when they first came out, I found myself singing along with them.  That just goes to show how their music has reached younger generations. 

As far as I am concerned, this award show put some life back into the R&B genre.  Other award shows give more light to Rock and Pop and R&B gets lost in the shuffle.  It was good to see some old school artists as well seeing the new faces of the genre.  I also enjoyed the seeing the flashback episodes of Soul Train (I’m still pressed that the show went off the air before I could become a Soul Train dancer).  I also want to give shoutouts to BET for showing the award show on BET and not only on Centric (I don’t have the Centric channel and to be completely honest we just got BET a week ago).  If you missed it last night, I am pretty sure that BET will be showing an encore presentation. 

#StraigthHairDontCare:Shampoo

Hey everybody!! I know you are stuffing your face but since I had some down time today I thought I would tell you about a new shampoo you might want to try.  Tarjay (also known as Target) has stepped up their ethnic hair supply game.  They have begun to carry a variety of shampoos for natural hair.  The brand I got was Shea Moisture.  I think it was particularly made for natural hair but I like the way it makes my hair feel.  There is Shea Moisture shampoo and conditioner for itchy scalp, damaged hair, and even for thickening your hair. 

First of all, it smells great! Like I haven't had a shampoo smelled this good in a long time.  And the smell continues to linger in your hair long after you wash it.  Something else I like about it is how clean it gets my hair.  When I wash my hair I like to have that feeling that I got all the products and pollutants from the week out of my strands..  This shampoo gives me that feeling.  I also like the conditioner.  It is very thick. Like other conditioners, I put a good amount of product on my hair and put on a shower cap.  I let it sit on my hair for 30 minutes to an hour.  I wash it out and style as usual.  It leaves my hair soft and shiny.  Also, all the ingredients in Shea Moisture are natural.  I have been reading that you should limit your use of shampoos that contain sulfates (sulfates can cause your hair to be dry).  Well, Shea Moisture doesn't carry sulfates, phthalates, or propylene.  Instead, the shampoos and conditioners contain Shea butter, argan oil, sea kelp which help moisturize the hair, restore shine and rebuilds hair elasticity, and detoxifies hair follicles of impurities and residue

Shea Moisture also has other products like a deep conditioner masque.  I haven't tried it yet but I give a try later on.  This product will run you about $10 a bottle.  Not too bad and like I said it is a good product.  If you are going to be at Target this Black Friday be sure to pick up a bottle.  You will not be disappointed. 

#RHOA:KenyaIsCrazy

Hey everybody!!  Atlanta Housewives was crazy this week and as  I told you in the last post, Ms. Moore would give me plenty to write about.  Well, Ms. Moore showed the side of her that needs to be medicated.  Ms. Moore meets with Kandi and Pheadra for lunch (is it just me or do these realty show ladies eat out for all their main meals?).  At the lunch, Kenya tells the girls about the little fiasco at the Jet Beauty auditions that took place at Cynthia's model agency. But the mess didn't end there.  Later on, we see Ms. Moore on a date with Walter (who reminds you of Frank from Moesha).  Walter tells Ms. Moore that he tried to date Kandi.  Then Ms. Moore gets upset that Kandi rejected Walter.  She throws this little fit and then goes to the bathroom.  When she comes back Walter gives her some compliments and she does a 180.  She's all giggles and smiles.  I mean it was really bipolar-ish. 

But the ratchetness continued.  Cynthia throws a women's success party for Nene and invite other successful women in Atlanta to the event.  Two guests in particular on the list confuse me: Kim and Sweety.  What exactly is Kim and Sweety successful at? Marrying a half-way known football player and being an assistant?  But I digress.  Towards the end of the party Cynthia gives a speech about how proud of Nene she was and Ms. Moore mocks her the whole time.  Then out of nowhere Ms. Bipolar, oops I mean Ms. Moore, grabs the mic and starts t give her own little speech.  I admit it was a bit tacky.  Then she has a side conversation with Nene about wanting them to have a clean slate with one another. Apparently, Cynthia has a back bone this season and interrupts this conversation to throw shade at Ms. Moore and her Miss USA title (from the previews a lot of the wives are going to throw shade at that title). 

In other news, the gays love Nene, Kandi is moving in with her man, Pheadra is obsessed with her booty, and Kim is still homeless.  Stay tuned, next week we meet the other new wife, Porsha. 

#RHOAisBACK

Hey everybody!! For those of you that did not know or did not care, Real Housewives of Atlanta is back!! Believe it or not, I found out a couple of days before the new episode came on that the new season was starting.  So Sunday I watched the new episode and the wives left me wanting more. 

Now I knew there were going to be two new wives: Kenya Moore and Porsha Williams Stewart. Apparently, Porsha Williams is the granddaughter of Hosea Williams, a civil rights leader.  I have a feeling that maybe some of Porsha’s actions might set the civil rights movement back a few years, but I digress.  But before I go any further with this review, I have to talk about Kenya Moore.  First of all, the only thing I know about Ms. Moore is when she was on one episode of Martin back in the mid 90’s.  This girl acting like she is a Hollywood legend.  Then she wants to bring up that she won Ms. USA.   Honey, nobody even talks about Ms. USA.  What really turned me off from Ms. Moore was when she talking bad to the girls at the Jet Beauty auditions.  Cynthia held these auditions at her model agency and invited Ms. Moore to be a judge.  Finally, Cynthia was fed up with her remarks and finally said something to her.  But if it was me I would have said something after she said something about to the first girl.  Yea, this is not going to be the last time I type something about Ms. Moore.

I need this to be Kim’s last season.  I am about tired of Kim’s materialistic behind.  On episode one, we find out that Kim is about to be homeless.  Her lease is up on their home and they are not going to buy it and it is going to cost them $100,000 to move.  I am pretty sure that Cory is not balling out of control like that because I do not even hear his name on the ESPN highlights.  So Kim goes to Kandi’s house and starts critiquing everything.  Her remarks included that it was a bad neighborhood (according to Kandi the governor or mayor lived around the corner) and how much work Kandi had to do on the house.  As I mentioned before, Kim is technically homeless.  Then the comment that took the cake was when Kim said it is a good thing they have an indoor pool because Kandi does not need to get any blacker.  Now as soon as someone calls her racist, she wants to get in her feelings.  Yep, I am pretty much bored with her and I need this to be her last season.

As for the rest of the cast, Pheadra wants to start doing doggy funerals, Kandi has a new man, we haven't met Porsha yet, and Nene has a role on every upcoming series and she [Nene] is dating her ex-husband.  In a nutshell, that was the first episode of the new season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta. 

#SecondThoughts

Lately, a lot of posts have been about controversies, movies, award shows, crazy celebrities, and so on and so forth.  But sometimes I feel like when I just write about those things my readers don’t get to know me.  For the past year and a half I have been blogging and it has become therapeutic for me.  It is my time to escape and figure out how I am going to put words together to get a point across.  I do not care if I get 9 views or 99 views on a post.  For me it’s about publishing something that could possibly help someone or maybe give them a laugh.  At the end of the day it is an accomplishment. 

But for a minute I thought about shutting my blog down because I felt like it was not going anywhere and who cares anyways?  I mean who cares about Chris Brown latest antic or my opinion on this year’s VMAs.  People can go to the YBF or Bossip for their celebrity gossip.  Why would someone come to me to find out about healthy hair tips?  I mean you can just ask your beautician.  I, maybe, get an average of 20 views per page.  And to be totally honest, I am not sure if these are regular readers or people who have just stumbled upon my page.  I have a feeling that my friends on Facebook and Twitter are probably tired of me blowing up their newsfeeds and timelines with my blogs posts.  But then I realized that I could not shut down my blog.

There are 3 main reasons why I cannot shut down my blog down:

1.       Creativity Anybody that runs a blog will tell you that you can be as creative on a blog as you want to.  I can take my blog in any direction I feel.  This was the main reason I chose to not shut it down.  For me this is my creative outlet.  I can be having a conversation with a friend and then I will be like “Hey, this would make a great post.”  When I want more information on something (i.e. tips for healthy relaxed hair) I can just be the one to feel a void. 

2.       Somebody is reading it As I brought out earlier I get an average of 20 views per post.  Now this is nothing compared to popular blog sites but somebody continues to keep coming back to my blog.  Last year I wrote a post about not being picked by a sorority and it got a lot of views.  I had a friend/reader tell me that she was glad that I wrote that post.  I also wrote a post on thick girl issues and it too got a lot of views.  I would like to believe that that post helped someone who was dealing with weight issues to overcome their perception of their weight.  Whatever the reason, someone is reading it and I should at least keep writing for them as long as I have access to a keyboard.

3.       An Accomplishment I said earlier that my blog is an accomplishment for me.  I have never stuck to anything as long as I have stuck with my blog.  I am proud of myself to say the least.  I have had a chance to even expand to doing videos and being published in the local paper.  Hopefully, I will be able to expand even further to doing interviews. 

When I think about the possibilities of my blog, I realize that I cannot shut EBONY Eyes down.  She is my baby and I want to continue see her grow.  So friends you will have to continue to see my blogs posts on your newsfeed and timelines.  I do not know where EBONY Eyes will be in a year from now but I hope that she will still be here J